


Royal Pains

by Fangirlwriting



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders Needs a Hug, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders Are Twins, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Needs a Hug, Deceit | Janus Sanders Needs a Hug, Enemies to Lovers, Falling In Love, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Just in general hugs are good, Logic | Logan Sanders Is A Good Friend, Lots of people need hugs okay, M/M, Morality | Patton Sanders is a Good Friend, Protective Morality | Patton Sanders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 22,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25285030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirlwriting/pseuds/Fangirlwriting
Summary: Look, it's not that Roman hates Patton Sanders.  There's just no way an actual person exists that is actually that nice.  He has to be faking.  Or lying.  Or something.  He's obviously a fraud.Patton doesn't hate Roman Prince.  It's just that he's exactly the kind of egotistical jerk that makes it really hard to not get angry.  He's not going to actively try and be mean to him, of course, it's just... he doesn't really plan on trying to be nice, either.Misunderstandings and insecurities originally sparked Roman and Patton's rivalry, and the fact that they both have other things on their minds, like Roman's steadily decreasing performance in both of his extracurriculars and Patton's concern for his best friend and what's going on with his family, does not help.  It's only a matter of time before all these issues collide.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Deceit | Janus Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Logic | Logan Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders/Logic | Logan Sanders, Deceit | Janus Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders
Comments: 62
Kudos: 118





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a post by altruistic-skittles on tumblr that mentioned an enemies to lovers royality fic if anyone was looking for a challenge, and it turns out I was, so this was the result. I hope you enjoy!

It was at a football game that Roman originally met Patton Sanders. This wasn’t surprising, given that it was the one place where their interests matched up; Roman was the quarterback of the team, and Patton was the captain of the cheer squad.

But this particular night wasn’t going very well for them, and by the time the game was halfway over, Roman wasn’t seeing much hope for turning it around. As soon as halftime started, everyone started glaring at Roman, as he had missed a big catch just a couple seconds ago. Roman ducked away from all of their gazes and walked off to get some water.

Why couldn’t he have just caught the stupid ball? It was three feet to his left, all he had to do was move! Just a little! Stupid. Why did he even bother—

It was then that he stumbled into Patton who was holding his own cup. Luckily, they just managed to avoid spilling the water everywhere.

“Whoops! Sorry!” he called, smiling up at Roman. A second later his face lit up. “Oh, hey! You guys are having a great game out there!”

Roman frowned. “We’re losing. Badly.”

“Oh, really?” the boy laughed. “Well, you could have fooled me! Really, I don’t know anything about football.” He stuck his hand out. “I’m Patton.”

Roman frowned harder and ignored his hand. “Why are you here, then?” he snapped.

Patton blinked in surprise and put his hand down. “I’m the captain of the cheer squad.”

Roman scowled. “And yet you don’t know anything about football.”

“Well, you don’t have to be rude.” Patton said.

“You don’t have to mock me! I’m not the only one who’s ever screwed up a catch you know. Back the fuck off.”

Patton started to glare a little bit back. “Hey now, there’s no need for that kind of language—”

“Roman!”

Roman turned to see Henry waving at him. “Get back over here, we’re starting again in like two minutes!”

Roman walked off without looking back at Patton. Who did he think he was? Roman knew he screwed up, okay? He didn’t need anyone to rub it in his face like that.

“I’m not so sure that’s what he was doing,” Logan said when Roman brought it up to him. “From the way you described him it seems like he was being sincere in not knowing anything about football.”

“And yet he’s the cheer captain and comes to all the games.” Roman pointed out.

“It’s not impossible that those two facts could both be true,” Logan pointed out, adjusting his glasses on his face, probably solely to make him look smart (he’d admitted to Roman before that he sometimes did that). “It could be that he comes to the games solely to be a part of the cheer squad and doesn’t really focus much on the game.”

“Or he could be mocking me,” Roman said, crossing his arms. “Which one is more likely?”

“Well—”

“Which one is more likely, Logan?”

Logan sighed. “There is no answer in which I will win here, is there?”

That ended their original conversation about Patton, but it was like a switch had been flipped. Suddenly Roman couldn’t stop noticing him. He was constantly bouncing around the halls, smiling at people, complimenting people, and generally being the worst kind of person.

Logan gave Roman a baffled look when he first described Patton as such. “Has the definition of that changed since I last checked? Or is this another slang term I don’t understand?”

“No,” Roman groaned. “Don’t you get it? He’s one of  _ those _ people. He’s super nice to everyone’s and then badmouths them behind their backs. Probably all to that emo nightmare best friend of his.”

“Roman, you’re jumping to conclusions.”

“Am I wrong?”

“I have no way of proving or disproving that!”

But for all his ranting, Roman didn’t have another interaction with Patton until weeks after the first one, on the day he was going to try out for the fall play.

He showed up at the auditorium an hour early, because that was just what he did, and also because football practice ended five minutes before and there wouldn’t be any point in going home for so little an amount of time before having to come back.

The drama teacher, who preferred to be called Mrs. R, arrived fifteen minutes after Roman did, and being quite used to this thing, waved at him before going to start setting up.

Roman’s nerves didn’t make an appearance until the other students started showing up, fifteen minutes after that. He knew a few of them, but there weren’t any he was particularly close to. He had formed more friendships with the seniors from last year, who had more acting experience. Unfortunately, they’d graduated last spring, meaning Roman was left with no friends in theatre.

He knew that Mrs. R always let the freshman go first at auditions due to the fact that the longer they went on the more nervous they were going to get.

Roman watched most of the freshmen stumble through a couple lines, but overall have solid performances. Mrs. R would have a tough time picking between them when they were considered for lead roles in a couple years.

Before Roman knew it, his name was being called. He took a breath, shook out his hands to try one last time to get rid of the nerves that had been building up, and stepped onto the stage.

He was auditioning for the lead, of course. He was likely to get it too, as he was one of the best actors there, and finally a senior, meaning that he would be considered for lead roles automatically.

Roman felt satisfied with his audition as he finished, and he caught a couple of freshmen watching him as he sat back down, which didn’t hurt the pride he felt.

At the end of the last audition, Mrs. R announced that results would be posted by her office tomorrow, and thanked everyone for participating. Roman picked up his backpack and was about to start for his car to drive home, when he felt a tap on the shoulder.

Roman started talking as he turned. “I’m sorry, but if you want some tips you’ll have to talk to me next time. I really need to—” Roman stopped when he saw Patton waving at him.

“Oh, um, I wasn’t here to audition,” Patton said with a little smile.

Roman frowned. “Well, I could have told you that.”

Patton’s smile faded a little, and he gave a harsh sigh. “Look, I was talking to Virgil about what happened, and he—”

“So you  _ were _ going to mock me to your friends, awesome.” Roman crossed his arms, starting to scowl.

“I wasn’t mocking you, I was actually trying to—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Roman snapped. “Are you just trying to infiltrate every space of my life? I will have you know that I am a  _ tremendous _ actor and a  _ fantastic _ football player and I don’t need you showing up when you could clearly never be as good as me at either of those things. How dare you try to pretend you could be?”

“I—” Patton gaped at him, before glaring back at Roman himself. “I was coming here to  _ apologize, _ but clearly you— you are just not worth it!”

Patton turned and marched away, and Roman gave huff and ignored the small bit of guilt that had taken root in his chest, because he had just come to _apologize,_ and Roman had to snap at him like an asshole—

No, enough. He’s not worth the guilt. Time to go home, Roman.

That day cemented the not-so-subtle rivalry between Roman Prince and Patton Sanders.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn’t a secret to Patton that Virgil didn’t have the best opinion of himself. He had threatened many times to physically fight Virgil if he didn’t stop talking badly about himself, but after Virgil and him had an honest conversation about how that wasn’t helpful, Patton tried to mostly accept that Virgil was working on it. Patton just made sure that Virgil knew he loved him and was there if he wanted to talk. Other than that Patton and Virgil were just friends. They laughed, they cried, they hugged. A lot. They did all three of those while they were watching some favorite movies of the two of them.

But Patton was known to have a bit of a protective streak, which was why he hadn’t brought up Roman Prince to Virgil. But Virgil had his ways to learn, and he wasn’t happy when he did.

“It’s not a big deal kiddo. He’s just a big ol’ jerk.” Patton said. “I know how to handle jerks.”

“You know how to let yourself get walked all over,” Virgil said, crossing his arms. “And I’m not going to let this ass do that.”

“Virgil, there’s no need for that kind of language.”

“No, I think this is the perfect time for that kind of language. Come on Patton, this guy was an ass to you. To  _ you! _ I cannot let that shit slide!”

“Virgil.” Patton crossed his arms, using his definitive voice. “I know how to handle myself, kiddo. I don’t need you to watch out for me, I’ll be okay.”

Virgil sighed, crossed his arms back, and leaned back on his spot on Patton’s bed. “I know, Pat, I just…” he sighed again.

“It’s okay, kiddo. I appreciate that you care about me,” Patton said, walking over to sit next to Virgil.

“Well, good,” Virgil muttered. “Because I do.”

“Aww!” Patton said, reaching over to exchange a hug with Virgil, who quickly returned the gesture.

“And I’m still going to keep an eye on this guy,” Virgil insisted without letting go from the hug.

Patton chuckled. “Virge, I would be surprised if you didn’t,” he said.

“Alright, dinner’s ready!” called a voice from the kitchen, and Patton hopped up and dragged Virgil with him, out into the hall and into the kitchen where his mother was placing waffles down on the table along with cinnamon sugar, powdered sugar, and different flavors of syrup.

“Wow, Ms. Sanders, this looks delicious,” Virgil said, sitting at his usual spot whenever he came over for dinner.

“Why, thank you Virgil,” she said, winking at Patton, who grinned back.

It was also no secret that Virgil’s favorite thing made by Patton’s mother was her waffles.

They were about to sit down to eat when Snickerdoodle started barking from her spot at her food bowls over by the back door.

“Alright, I’m coming!” Patton called, setting his plate down and walking towards the pantry. He grabbed the bag of dog food from inside and poured some into the dog bowl with the scoop inside. “There you are, your highness,” Patton said, patting Snickerdoodle’s head and leaving her to eat as he walked back over to the table to enjoy his own dinner.

Virgil and his mother were both already talking as he sat down. Virgil was going on about a new song he was writing, and his mom was smiling back at him. Patton took a moment to just watch two of his favorite people being happy. His house was one of the few places he saw Virgil let down his guard all the way, and it was always nice.

After dinner they both curled up on the couch to watch Frozen. They liked to snuggle during movies, as Virgil liked the closeness and Patton just liked to get hugs.

Another not-secret about Virgil was that he loved Disney. He would say it was ironically, but Patton had caught him singing one too many songs to believe him. Just that night Virgil hummed along to “For the First Time In Forever” and parts of “Let it Go.” He wasn’t going to tease him about it, especially considering then Virgil might stop.

Patton started paying closer attention once Anna walked into the shop and talking to the shopkeeper about getting winter clothes. He glanced hesitantly over at Virgil and tried to ignore the anxiousness that was settling in.

“Hey, you know there’s some kind of rumor that the shop guy has a husband?” Patton said as casually as he could.

“Huh?” Virgil said without looking away from the screen.

“Someone pointed out that the people in the sauna are a bunch of kids and another man who’s the same age. So some people are calling this guy the first openly gay Disney character.”

“Huh,” Virgil said again, still without looking away from the screen.

Patton tried not to tense up and waited to see if Virgil would say something else, but he didn’t, and then the scene ended, and they moved on to “Reindeers are Better Than People.”

Patton stopped himself just short of giving a loud sigh and slumped down a little on the couch.

So much for coming out to Virgil.

Patton had been trying to bring up the LGBTQ community to Virgil for a couple weeks now to gage his opinion on it, ever since he realized he was gay. He’d already come out to his mom, pretty anxiously, but she accepted him immediately, like he had always been pretty sure she would. They’d hugged and shed a couple tears and gone to get rainbow snow cones as a celebration.

Virgil, on the other hand… that was another story. They hadn’t talked about sexuality, ever. Neither of them had ever mentioned anyone they were interested in, or someone they found attractive, or their own sexualities. Virgil had never once said anything about the LGBTQ community one way or the other, and Patton was pretty sure Virgil was straight. It’s not like he was crushing on him or anything, so that wasn’t the problem.

The problem was… 

It was also not a secret to Patton that Virgil was adopted. Virgil sometimes said he thought his parents picked him expecting him to be a golden child. Patton wondered how much of Virgil’s self esteem issues stemmed from that belief. He also sometimes wondered how true that actually was, because—

Well, because Virgil’s parents were pretty openly homophobic.

And that wasn’t a secret to Patton either.

…

Patton was debating signing up for the play. Not as an actor, obviously, he had no experience and he didn’t want to deal with Roman, but it could be kind of fun to work on the set. He also needed something other than cheerleading to fill his time while he was trying to work up the courage to come out to Virgil. But the whole thing could easily turn into a nightmare if Roman caught wind of it, or if cheerleading interfered too much.

This whole situation was kind of funny. Normally Virgil was the one freaking out about telling him something and looking for a distraction, not the other way around.

He debated for probably too long, because by the time he decided it would be worth a shot, the play had been in progress for almost a week.

Patton managed to avoid talking to Roman the first time he showed up to work on the set, as all of the actors were going into a separate room to work on the play in the earlier stages. He saw him during the beginning of the rehearsal when everyone was together, but it was pretty easy to just avoid him overall, especially since he’d already decided he wasn’t going to act. So instead, he headed towards the person who was directing people around the set, who he figured was probably the one in charge of that. He waited until everyone else had left before walking up to talk to him.

“Hi!” he called.

The boy turned, and Patton noticed the scar running down the side of his face. He tried not to look at it, as bringing it up would be rude. “I’m Patton,” he said instead.

“Patton,” the boy said, and a flicker of recognition passed his face. “You’re Virgil’s friend.”

Patton blinked in surprise. Admittedly, he wasn’t usually addressed that way. “I am,” he said, smiling. “Do you know Virgil?”

The boy hesitated. “I used to,” he said eventually, and before Patton could comment on the strange remark, he straightened up and smiled back. “I’m Janus. What can I do for you?”

“Oh, I was wondering if it’s too late to sign up to help with the set? Or if it’s okay if I might have some complications. I’m captain of the cheer squad as well.”

“Well, this only takes place in the evenings, so you’d have to miss it on nights you have games, but yeah, I can find something for you to do. How are you with painting?”

“Uh… just painting something a certain color, or a mural? Because art wise, I can’t draw a stick figure.”

Janus chuckled. “Just painting the mural after it’s drawn, don’t worry. I’ll set you up with me over here, then.”

“Awesome!” Patton said, beaming at him. “Thanks!”

Janus smiled as he started over towards the other side of the stage, and Patton followed. “Just so you know though, there might not be as much for you to do at first if you’re not helping with the drawing.”

“That’s fine,” Patton said, sitting in one of the chairs at a table as Janus pulled a pencil from behind his ear and sat in the one across from him, starting to sketch something in a notebook. “I can just talk to you.”

“Oh excellent, that won’t be distracting at all,” Janus muttered, starting to write down a couple notes.

“Well, maybe I can help then,” Patton said, leaning forward to look at the notebook. “What kind of set were you thinking of?”

Janus glanced up and gave Patton a once-over, before turning the notebook sideways in between the two of them. “Okay, so this show has a lot of fantasy elements. We’d need a castle somewhere on the stage, but we also want a forest and a tower at different times, and splitting the stage wouldn’t give the actors enough room to perform.”

“Oh, I have an idea!” Patton called. “Have you considered a set that can rotate?”

Janus stared at him for a minute. “That… would be incredibly difficult.”

“Well, what’s the point if you don’t challenge yourself?”

Janus stared for a second more before turning back to the set. “You know…” he muttered, tapping the pencil on his chin. “If we made the middle section of the set unconnected from everything, that wouldn’t be impossible… but I’m not sure we’d have the resources to pull something like that off. Let’s stick it on a back burner for now.”

“Okay,” Patton said. “So what else did you have in mind then?”

They continued to talk for the rest of the rehearsal, and though Patton had originally had some doubts about doing this, if this was an example of what the whole thing would be like, he could almost understand how someone like Roman could enjoy it so much.


	3. Chapter 3

Roman slammed his bedroom door shut with a groan and collapsed with an angry groan on his bed.

“Hey, Ro!”

Roman screamed and leapt backwards. He glanced down over the side of his bed to see Remus’ sticking his head out from under it.

“Remus? What are you doing in here?”

“Momsie and Pops won’t let me back in my room until the guy they called gets rid of the raccoon,” Remus said, wiggling out from under the bed.

“So you decided the next best place was under my bed.”

“Yep!” Remus called, standing up for half a second before plopping down on the bed next to Roman. “What’s up with you? You look like I killed your stuffed puppy again.”

Roman sighed. “I’m fine, Re. Just have to deal with Patton in theatre now too, because he just loves showing up everywhere I don’t want him.”

“It sounds like I’d like this Patton person,” Remus said with a grin.

“Great, so go be friends with him,” Roman muttered. “I’m sure you’ll both get along swimmingly.”

Remus grinned wider before poking Roman in the cheek. “I’m kinda surprised you don’t like him, Ro-ro. Don’t you normally go for the bleeding heart types?”

Roman stared at Remus for a second before it turned into a glare. “He’s a  _ fake, _ Remus. I will not be fooled by him like everyone else.”

Remus shrugged. “Whatever you say,” he said. “So do you want to come help me catch the raccoon or not?”

Roman gave it a half second thought before waving Remus off without him. Remus grinned and jumped up, running from the room and down the hall to his own bedroom.

Roman sighed, collapsing back on his bed for the second time now that he was really alone.

What the hell was Patton’s deal? He was obviously trying to spite him by joining the play, but if that was the goal, why not get a role? Was he just sure that he couldn’t pull it off and trying not to embarrass himself in his attempt to embarrass Roman?

That made sense. That made perfect sense. That was probably it. Right?

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and texted Logan.

Half-wit: Have you heard

Nerd: To what are you referring to?

Half-wit: Patton has decided to join the play

Nerd: You think it’s to spite you, don’t you?

Half-wit: What other reason could he have?

Nerd: Perhaps he wanted to branch out or try and find a new interest. He may really enjoy the play you are doing this year.

Half-wit: Or he learned I was doing the play and joined to spite me

Nerd: Or that.

Roman could feel Logan rolling his eyes through the phone. He wasn’t sure if Logan was exasperated and still trying to change his mind, or tired of talking about Patton and wanting to change the subject. He decided to go with the second option.

Half-wit: So what is the deal with your scholastic thing? Are you doing it or not?

Nerd: The scholastic decathlon. Yes, I believe I am going to participate. I have given it some thought, and I believe it will greatly help improve my performance under pressure.

Half-wit: Logan, just admit you’ll have fun

Nerd: It will be rather enjoyable, yes. But that is not my primary reason for participating.

Half-wit: Whatever helps you sleep at night, Lo

At that point Roman’s parents called up the steps for dinner. Roman set his phone on his nightstand and walked out before heading down the hall and knocking on Remus’ door.

He was responded to with the sound of growling and scratching, along with Remus’s crazed laughter.

“Remus, put the raccoon down and come have dinner!” Roman called.

There was a thump and another growl before Remus opened the door and slipped out, making sure to shut it quickly after him.

Remus’s hair was a mess and he had scratches all over his face, but he was still grinning.

“Jesus Christ Superstar, Remus,” Roman said.

“So the raccoon is kinda mad that I brought him into the house,” Remus said.

Roman smacked his forehead and let out a sigh. “Okay, let’s just— let’s just get this over with,” he said, taking Remus’s hand and pulling him towards the steps.

It was only once they got down the steps and into the dining room that Roman looked down from the ceiling to find their parents already staring at Remus with part anger, part concern.

“So I can explain,” Roman said.

**_“REMUS!”_ **

…

“You know, statistically, Remus is correct,” Logan said. “You do have a tendency to fall for people who are very caring and compassionate.”

Roman glared at Logan from his spot on the opposite side of the lunch table. “You’re just saying that to get on Remus’s good side.”

Logan’s cheeks were suddenly dusted with pink. “Why would you think that?” he asked. His blush was the only thing giving away that he wasn’t 100% calm and collected, as he didn’t stammer at all.

Unfortunately for Logan, Roman had known him for almost five years at this point. “Logan, the sooner you stop trying to hide this frankly ridiculous crush of yours, the better off we’ll all be.”

Logan’s cheeks got a little more pink, but he didn’t reply.

Roman leaned forward on the table. “So… how’s your decapathon going?”

Logan gaped at him.  _ “Decathlon, _ Roman. We’re not cutting off anyone’s head.”

“Oh, really? Shame. You probably could have gotten Remus to come to a decapathon.”

Logan was now bright red. “Fine,” he got out. “You win. Now stop.”

Roman snickered. He leaned back in his chair. “You know I’m cool with it, right?” he asked.

“I… appreciate that knowledge.”

Roman laughed again. “You’re unbelievable,” he said. “Are you ever actually going to do something about it?”

Logan stared at him. Roman raised an eyebrow.

“…No,” Logan said finally. “I have no evidence that Remus might return my…” he cleared his throat. “Attentions.”

“Attentions,” Roman said with a deadpan. “Logan, it’s  _ Remus. _ Who can ever be sure what he feels? You’re never gonna know unless you ask him.”

“Nope. Absolutely not. There is a high chance of failure.”

Roman groaned. “You are impossible to be friends with.”

“You should have thought about that before you needed my help with tutoring in eighth grade.”

Roman stuck out his tongue. “Fine.” He picked up his fork and took another bite of the leftover spaghetti from dinner the night before. “But don’t think this is the last time I’m nagging you about this.”

“I am certain it is not.”

…

“Roman! Would you focus, please?”

Roman jerked upwards to find everyone staring at him. He felt a spike of anxiety and did his best to play it off.

“Certainly! Is there something required of me?” he asked, putting on his theatre voice.

Allison shot him a glare. “Your line.”

Roman glanced down at his script, then at the person next to him, and found they were on entirely different pages.

“Apologies,” Roman said, flipping ahead a couple pages until he found where everyone else was. He delivered his line and got himself more focused into the scene, as he now had a more active part.

It wasn’t until after they finished for the night that Allison approached him. “Are you okay, Roman?” she asked. “You were really out of it tonight.”

Roman shot a beaming smile at her. “Splendid, Allison. I apologize for my performance, I had a lot on my mind.”

Allison hesitated before shrugging. “That’s alright. Just do better next time, okay?”

“Of course!”

With that, Roman walked out the doors of the auditorium and to his car, opening the door and letting out a sigh before resting his head on the steering wheel.

In all honesty, he hadn’t had a lot on his mind that night. He just couldn’t seem to focus for some reason. Maybe he was just tired from football practice. That had to be it.

But he could still ask Logan for some helpful tips tomorrow. He was bound to have some ideas.


	4. Chapter 4

Patton loved being the cheer captain. When it had first happened, he had been a little apprehensive about some of the girls on the team getting jealous or angry, but thankfully that hadn’t happened. In fact, everyone seemed to be thrilled with the announcement, and Patton had gotten quite a few congratulations.

If you asked him his favorite part about it, he would likely go on some kind of rant about how much fun it was doing the jumps and performances and screaming at the top of his lungs quite often with no ramifications or weird looks. But really Patton had far more fun getting everyone else excited. He might not have loved all of the players on the team, but getting people excited and having a good time, which in turn got the players pumped up and doing better, always put a smile on Patton’s face.

But lately, that didn’t seem to be doing much.

Patton really didn’t know anything about football, but even he could tell when the team started doing this badly. They hadn’t won a game in a month, and it was clear that it was really starting to wear on everyone, including the cheer squad.

Well, he couldn’t do anything about the football players, but the cheer squad was Patton’s domain, and he was going to do his job as cheer captain.

“Okay, everybody.” He stood in front of everyone else on the squad, who were currently sitting on the benches in the gym. “I know the team hasn’t been doing so hot lately. And that can bring down morale. I get it. But we need to stop letting it affect our performance.”

He always encouraged everyone to be no-nonsense with him, so he wasn’t surprised when he heard some grumbles and sighs.

“I know,” he said. “Trust me. It’s hard to cheer for a team that isn’t doing well. But we can’t change anything by being down in the dumps. Believe it or not, we do affect the athletes performance. It can raise  _ their _ morale when they see people cheering for them. So this next game, we’re gonna do the best we absolutely can. And if we do,” Patton took a breath. “I will take some time to fix everyone’s uniforms.”

That got some surprised and excited looks. Patton had been trying to get the school to buy new cheer uniforms for as long as he had been captain, but they weren’t budging, and the uniforms they had were close to falling apart.

Patton had made the same protests about how the cheerleaders affected the athletes performance, but they didn’t seem to believe him. Taking on everyone’s uniform himself would be a big task, but he could do some during theatre while he still didn’t have much to do and get his mom to help with some of the others.

The rest of the practice went fairly well after his pep talk/promise, and Patton had a good feeling about Friday’s game when he went home that afternoon. Virgil, who had stayed after for that exact purpose, came along with him, and they spent most of the afternoon preparing Patton’s sewing supplies for the uniforms he would need to fix.

“Seriously, Pat, I think you’re putting way too much effort into this.” Virgil said, setting down another basket of fabric. “You’re gonna overwork yourself.”

“I can handle it Virgil,” Patton insisted. “If I get overwhelmed I’ll ask Mom to help.”

“Or you could ask her to help from the start, making it less likely you’ll get overwhelmed in the first place.”

“She’s busy, Virge. She’s working a lot right now, I don’t want to bother her.”

“So you’re going to fix dozens of uniforms all by yourself.”

“I can do it! Seriously, you don’t need to keep worrying about me.”

“I always worry about everything.”

Patton chuckled and fixed the sewing machine in place on his desk before stepping back and observing the little space he’d created. It would work perfectly.

“Okay, but seriously, I am going to be spending a lot of time on sewing in the near future, so I’d rather not think about it right now.” Patton turned to Virgil. “You want to watch some Disney?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I’m not really in the mood for anything big right now, though. Could we watch, like, the collection of short films on Netflix?”

“Sure thing.” They both walked from Patton’s room to the living room, and sat down as Patton grabbed the remote to navigate to what they wanted to watch.

“Hey, is your mom home yet?” Virgil asked.

“Nah, she had to work late tonight,” Patton said. He paused for a moment. “I’m actually kinda worried about her. She’s been working late a lot lately.”

Virgil gave him a curious look. “How often?”

Patton turned to face him. “Uh, four or five extra hours every couple days?”

“Are they consistent?”

“Uh… no. Actually, they’re kinda random.”

Virgil bit his lip, clearly in thought. “She’s a nurse, right? How often does the hospital need her longer?”

“Um, I don’t know. Why?”

“She’s staying hours later on random intervals. Are there a lot of patients right now?”

Patton shrugged. “No more than usual, according to her.”

Virgil nodded knowingly. “Uh-huh. Patton?”

“Yeah?”

“Those sound like dates.”

Patton dropped the remote. “Oh my goodness. You think she’s seeing someone?! That would be amazing, oh my gosh! She absolutely deserves it, they better be treating her right, I can’t even—” He squealed in excitement and hopped up from the couch, nearly jumping up and down.

Virgil chuckled a little. “Wow, you’re taking this very well.”

“Well, it’s my mom! Whoever she likes can’t be a bad person! Oh my goodness, I hope he likes me! Or she! Or they! I— this is amazing!” Patton screamed, starting to actually jump up and down a little.

“Yeah, well you don’t have to worry about one thing, I don’t think your mom is gay,” Virgil said, and Patton immediately stopped jumping.

He didn’t turn to look at Virgil.

“Uh, Pat? You okay?”

“That’s uh… that’s not something I’d be…  _ worried _ about, Virgil,” Patton said quietly. “It would be fine.”

Virgil said nothing, and Patton still couldn’t find it in him to turn around.

_ Tell him, _ a tiny voice in his head whispered.  _ Go on, tell him now. _

“So, movies!” Patton screamed, whirling around, leaping for a remote and starting the short film collection all without looking at Virgil’s face. They didn’t look at each other again until Virgil left when they finished the film collection. Patton was pretty sure neither of them were actually paying attention.

…

“Hey, Mom?” Patton said, walking into the kitchen. “Can I ask you something?”

His mom turned from where she was making beans on the stove and smiled at him. “Of course.”

“Are you… dating someone?”

His mom blinked in surprise before sighing. “I guess I couldn’t hide it from you forever,” she said with a laugh. “I am. I wanted to wait until it was serious before I told you, but I—” she cleared her throat. “Don’t see us breaking up anytime soon, so I suppose it’s time you knew.”

“Aww, Mom!” Patton ran forward to give her a hug. “That’s amazing! You totally deserve it! I hope they’re nice. They better be nice. Do they respect you, oh, they better respect you or I’m going to have some words for them!” Patton squealed a little again and wrapped his arms tighter around his mother. “This is so amazing!”

He got a chuckle in response. “Thank you, Patton,” she said. “I appreciate your support, it means more than you realize. I hope you can meet them soon.”

“I hope so too!” Patton said, leaning back and grinning at his mom before going right back in for another hug. “I’m so happy for you!”

His mom laughed and hugged Patton back again. “Thank you, Patton,” she said, giving him a kiss on the top of his head. “I’ll talk to them tonight and maybe we can get together for dinner later this week?”

“That would be awesome!” Patton said, beaming.

“Maybe you could invite Virgil too,” his mother suggested.

Patton stopped smiling.

His mom frowned. “What’s wrong?”

Patton sighed. “We’re… sort of fighting,” he mumbled. He told her what had happened with their realization, and before that, about how he was trying to come out to him but was pretty scared to do so, and eventually he reluctantly admitted how his fears related to Virgil’s parents.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Patton was pulled in for another hug, although this one was much less happy. “You’ll work it out. You two always do. Virgil loves you, baby. I’m sure he won’t want to stop being your friend just because you’re gay.”

“I hope so,” Patton mumbled. “I almost told him the other night, I just…” Patton sighed.

“It’s going to be okay.” His mom leaned back from the hug and smiled at Patton. “How about we have a movie night, and get our minds off all this icky stuff?”

Patton smiled at her. “Okay.”


	5. Chapter 5

Logan, as it turned out, did not have any tips, but he said he would look into it. On the bright side, they won Friday’s football game, due in no small part to the cheerleaders getting everyone’s energy up. But Roman’s good mood lasted about as long as it took him to realize that Patton had probably noticed his worsening performance, and was making the cheerleaders act extra peppy to mock him.

He took a step back when Logan pointed out that not only was that ridiculous, but also somehow both self deprecating and incredibly egotistical at the same time. And for once, Roman could admit he had a point. Probably not even Patton would take a rivalry far enough to force the entire cheer squad to mock someone.

But while Roman’s performance in football could be starting on an upward trend, his performance in theatre seemed to be going in the opposite direction. He memorized his lines fine, but that was always something he excelled at. He just couldn’t seem to connect to the character as well as he usually did. It didn’t help that they’d moved out to the main auditorium and Roman now had to deal with Patton sitting less than 100 feet from him most of the time.

“You’re sewing cheerleading uniforms?” Roman asked one night after rehearsal ended. The set crew was staying after some days due to falling behind a little in drawing. Maybe Patton was sabotaging them somehow.

Patton looked up at Roman with a barely concealed veil of annoyance. “I am,” he said. “Is that a problem?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I was just thinking you should maybe keep each extracurricular as your main focus while you’re there. Unless you value one more than the other, in which case it’s insulting for you to be here.”

Patton gave a harsh sigh that he was clearly trying to hide— and failing to do so. “Well, sometimes it’s hard to juggle two extracurriculars effectively. I guess you know something about that, don’t you Roman?”

Roman blinked and took a step back, not expecting such a blatant comeback.

“It’s not very nice to try and tell me what I should value, Roman,” Patton continued, looking up at Roman with a bit of a glare. “I thought you’d be more honorable than that, given the fact that you’re playing a prince in this play.”

Roman took a deep breath and tried to keep himself from launching straight into a defense that Patton would just work harder to pick holes in. What to go after instead? “I thought you’d put less effort into trying to seem so positive,” Roman said. “Given that you’re friends with the most depressing person in the school.”

Patton dropped the cheerleading uniform in shock and whirled again to face Roman. “How dare you? Virgil hasn’t done anything to you! We weren’t even talking about Virgil!”

Roman shrugged nonchalantly and walked away casually, hearing Patton’s groan of frustration behind him. It put a smile on his face.

Logan was getting out of school around the same time Roman was, because he was now staying after to prepare for his scholastic decathlon. The immediate result of this was that Roman was going to drive him home. Unfortunately, it seemed to be taking him a long time to finish with whatever they were doing that night, because Roman was waiting in his car for almost another half hour.

Finally, Logan came walking out of the school, and started towards Roman’s car after he honked the horn.

“What took you so long?” Roman asked as Logan pulled the door open.

“Apologies. We ran a little bit late tonight,” Logan said as he climbed into his seat and pulled his seat belt on. “It’s been a little rough getting going.”

It wasn’t really a huge deal, and Roman knew that, but his limit on inconveniences had been reached at that point. “So this is going to become a regular occurrence,” he grumbled. “Awesome.”

Logan raised an eyebrow at him. “Is it going to be an issue? If I need to get another ride home, I can.”

“No, it’s fine, sorry,” Roman said with a sigh. “I’m just ready to go home.”

“Ah. Understandable.”

Roman dropped Logan off at his house without much more conversation, and a little bit of awkwardness that he really didn’t like was left in the air as Logan said goodbye and headed up through the front door. Roman wanted to say something before he left that would get Logan to smile, in that way that meant whatever he’d said was funny but he wasn’t going to admit it. But he couldn’t think of anything, and Logan closed the door before he could.

Roman drove himself home, turned off his car in the driveway, and all but dragged himself into the house, up the stairs, and into his bedroom. He barely had time to pull of his jeans and put on some sweatpants before he collapsed into his bed, not bothering to change the t-shirt he was wearing.

But despite that, he found himself unable to sleep. His mind kept wandering back to Patton, which was really annoying, because Roman hated him. A lot. How dare he try and infiltrate the theatre just to mess with Roman even more?

But Logan was right, he was letting it get to him. He needed to get his feelings under control before it kept affecting his performance. He was already struggling to keep up to par to his usual efforts in football, and he was having issues connecting with his character for their play. It was only a matter of time before this started causing problems for people other than him.

What if he lost the football team the season? He really didn’t want everyone’s anger to be directed at him. What if the play was a flop and it was entirely his fault? Would that make his parents disappointed? Would Remus be disappointed? You never could tell with him, after all. What if Logan thought he did a terrible job? Roman wasn’t sure that he could take that. He would never tell Logan (his head was big enough as is), but he really valued his opinion.

But what could he do to improve? How was he supposed to fix everything he was doing wrong if he didn’t know what was causing him to do everything wrong in the first place?

Maybe all he needed was a space away from Patton.

…

“I’m thinking about trying to write for the paper,” Roman said when he sat down at lunch.

Logan stared at him. “You’re going to kill yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

Logan blinked. “Roman. You’re already participating in both theatre and football. You cannot add another extracurricular.”

“That only makes three.”

“Yes, three extracurriculars that all take large amounts of time. You’re going to use up all of your free time trying to stay on top of the workload from them as well as your schoolwork. You’re going to end up exhausting yourself.”

Roman chuckled and waved a hand dismissively. “You’re only saying that because I practically had to threaten you to get you to join even one extracurricular that you would really enjoy. I’m not going to be like  _ you.” _

“You say that with such disdain.”

“I’m going to do something with my life.”

“You are going to attempt to do too much with your life.”

“Oh, come on, Logan. I’ve already checked, and the schedules line up! You know, most of the time.”

“Roman, this is a bad idea.”

“Well, I already signed up.”

“Of course you did.”

…

Logan’s concerns were also brought up to Roman by the main editor of the paper, Emile.

“No offense, Roman,” he said. “But how can I be sure you’re going to be able to give enough effort to this paper when you’re also the quarterback to the football team and the lead role in the upcoming play? It seems like you might be overworking yourself here, bud.”

“Oh, you don’t need to worry,” Roman said. “I write a lot in my free time anyway, why would being given something specific to write about make a difference?”

“That isn’t always how motivation works, Roman.”

“Trust me, Emile, I know what I’m doing.”

Emile looked unconvinced, but eventually sighed. “Alright, but until I’m sure you can handle this, I’m going to give you some smaller projects.”

Roman accepted this, and walked away with his first assignment, to write about the football team.  “Since that’s a pretty good area of expertise for you,” Emile said.

Well, that was a fantastic idea. Roman could write about the football team. And he could also easily do it without it turning into a self-deprecating piece about how horribly he was doing this season. He could do this. This would be fun. Piece of cake.


	6. Chapter 6

“Isn’t it adorable?” Patton said, cooing at the kittens as one of them chewed on the other’s ear. He had made it a mission of his to find pictures of small animals to cheer Virgil up whenever he was having a bad day— and if the way he walked into school this morning was any indication, he was having a very bad day.

“They’re really cute, Patton,” Virgil said, but his voice was shaking in the way that meant whatever Patton was trying wasn’t having much of an effect.

Patton knew from experience that trying to ask what was wrong would just make it worse, so he just slid a little closer in case Virgil wanted touch and showed him the picture with more obvious enthusiasm, taking careful not to be any louder.

It was another half a minute before Virgil turned and buried his face in Patton’s shoulder. From anyone else’s perspective, it would look like he was laughing, but that wasn’t what he was doing.

“Do you want to get out of here?” Patton asked quietly.

Virgil nodded into his shoulder.

Patton gave Virgil a moment to take another deep breath, and then they both stood up. They headed for the side door that led to the outside of the school, and once there, Virgil deflated again, collapsing against the wall just out of sight of anyone in the cafeteria.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Patton asked hesitantly.

Virgil pulled in a very shaky gasp. “Patton,” he got out. “I think I’m gay.”

Patton couldn’t come up with anything to say for much too long, too busy thinking about the implications of that which were… bad. Very bad. By the time he processed what he’d just heard Virgil was breathing heavily and looking like he wanted to bolt.

“Virgil—” Patton started.

Virgil looked away from Patton and hunched his shoulders, and Patton moved in front of Virgil before he tried to do something like run away.

“Virgil, I’m gay too,” he said.

Virgil stopped and looked up in shock. “You are?”

Patton smiled a little. “I’ve been trying to tell you for weeks, Virge,” he said.

Virgil’s eyes widened as he seemed to process what Patton was saying. “Oh, fuck.” He buried his head in his hands.

Patton sighed and looked down. “Virgil, I’m sorry.”

Virgil yanked his head up again. “What? Why?”

“I didn’t know how you would feel about it,” Patton admitted. “I assumed from the way you never brought it up that you would react badly, and that wasn’t fair of me.”

Virgil shook his head. “No. No you… you had the right idea,” he choked out. “I— fuck.” Virgil leaned against the side of the building and slid down the wall until he was sitting on the ground, then buried his head in his hands again. “I’m such a hypocrite,” he groaned.

“What do you mean?”

Virgil peeked out between his fingers. “Well, I…” he trailed off, and sighed, pulling his hands down. “You met Janus in rehearsal, right?” he said.

Patton nodded. “He said he used to know you.”

Virgil winced, before he sighed again. “That’s fair,” he muttered. “But it was more than that. Janus and I were both adopted together.”

“What?!” Patton asked in shock. “You have a brother? How did I not know this about you?”

“Because mom and dad kicked him out,” Virgil whispered. “When he came out as gay.”

Patton’s hands flew to his mouth in horror. “Oh my god. Virgil—”

“I was scared.” Virgil buried his head in his knees this time. “And I hadn’t heard anything about…  _ them. _ Before. So I let them. I didn’t even say goodbye.”

Patton wiped at his eyes before Virgil could see the tears welling in them, because that wasn’t what Virgil needed right now. He turned and got down to sit next to Virgil, wrapping him in a hug. “Virge,” he whispered. “It’s gonna be okay.”

_ “How, _ Patton? If Mom and Dad find out— well, I know for certain what they’ll do.”

“I’m gonna be right here,” Patton said instantly. “I love you, Virgil, I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”

Virgil laughed. “God, I’m such a fucking hypocrite. I’m so sorry, Patton.”

“It’s okay, Virgil,” Patton said softly. “I forgive you.”

Virgil looked up at Patton as if he didn’t quite believe him, and Patton offered his arms for a hug. Virgil leaned into them, and Patton pulled Virgil close as he already started planning what he was going to do.

…

Snickerdoodle seemed to pick up on Patton’s awful mood the minute he got home from cheer practice. He immediately whimpered and nuzzled up to Patton’s leg.

“Hey, baby girl,” Patton said, leaning down and petting her. “I’m okay, just a little anxious.”

“Patton, are you home?” his mother called from the kitchen. “Could you help me set the table? Jordan is going to be here soon.”

“Yeah, mom!” Patton called, walking towards the kitchen. “But actually, could I talk to you about something first?”

“Of course.” His mom set a stack of three plates down on the counter as Patton walked in. “What is it?”

Patton had been trying all day to come up with some kind of reason for Janus to have been kicked out that didn’t involve outing him, but he was too anxious to really think about it properly. So instead, he decided not to tell his mother anything about Janus being related to Virgil in any way.

“There’s this kid at school,” he said. “His name’s Janus. I’ve talked to him a couple of times in theatre, and I don’t think he has a home.”

His mother’s face softened. “Oh, that’s awful.”

“Yeah… but that's not really why I brought it up. I was kinda wondering if maybe… he could stay with us?” Patton asked hesitantly.

His mom’s face fell, and Patton felt his heart sinking. “Patton,” she sighed. She walked forward and wrapped Patton in a hug. “You have a very caring heart and you want to help other people, and I absolutely love that about you.”

“But?” Patton asked.

“We can’t afford it, sweetheart,” his mom said, pulling back to look Patton in the eyes. “You know we’re close on bills sometimes. I would miss them entirely if I had to take care of another kid.”

Patton looked down.

“I love you, sweetheart, and I love that you think with your heart before your head, but it just isn’t practical right now.”

Patton sighed, and mumbled a miserable, “Okay,” before his mom pulled him in for another hug.

“If something changes, I will absolutely consider it, okay?”

Patton smiled a little up at his mother. “Something like you marrying Jordan?” he asked softly.

His mother laughed, likely picking up on Patton’s desire to change the mood. “Patton Sanders, I just met Jordan last month! It is way too soon to think about marriage!”

Patton laughed a little too, and was about to say something else, when a knock came on the door.

Snickerdoodle started barking.

“Oh goodness, Jordan is here. Could you take the plates to the table?” his mom asked, before looking in the reflection of the fridge and adjusting her hair.

“They already like you, mom, you don’t have to worry about your appearance,” Patton joked, even as he picked up the plates and carried them into the other room. He set one at each the place mats set up and headed quickly over to the door to pull Snickerdoodle back as he opened it.

Jordan was smiling nervously as they met Patton’s gaze.

“Hi!” Patton called. “Just a sec, Snickerdoodle is— oh would you stop it?” Patton pulled Snickerdoodle back further and into the hallway before putting her into his bedroom. “I’ll come get you after dinner, sweetheart,” he called, shutting the door.

He headed back into the front room to find his mom talking to Jordan.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “She gets really excited when someone comes over. You wouldn’t believe how long it took her to stop barking like that at Virgil every time.”

Jordan chuckled a little. “It’s alright. I’m Jordan. It’s lovely to meet you.” They held out their hand which Patton happily shook.

“Great to meet you too,” he said happily.

And with that, they all started over to the table, and his mom went into the kitchen to get the pasta she’d made.

Patton tried to put Janus out of his mind for the moment and focus on Jordan. It wasn’t fair to not give them his attention just because he was worried about someone else. Besides, he was pretty sure they had some extra pop tarts in the pantry. He could always bring them to Janus tomorrow, just in case he needed them.


	7. Chapter 7

“Roman?”

Roman looked up to see his mother poking her head into his room. “Have you seen Remus?” she asked.

“I think he went for a swim,” Roman said. “And yes, he absolutely does know you’re closing up the pool for the winter tonight.”

His mother groaned and ducked back out, and Roman turned back to the article he was working on. He was almost done with it, and though it wasn’t nearly as good as the things he normally wrote, the deadline was tomorrow, so he didn’t have to figure out what exactly he didn’t like about it.

He wrote a sentence that tied up the article in a decent enough way, and groaned before sending it off to Emile, feeling very unsatisfied about the whole thing.

He grabbed his phone and was about to text Logan when a loud splash came from the direction of the backyard that most likely meant that Remus had managed to pull their mother into the pool.

Roman sighed and got up to get some towels from the bathroom. He walked them downstairs as his mother slammed the back door open, dragging Remus in behind her, who was grinning as he took one of the towels from Roman. Roman handed his mother the other one, who thanked him and marched up the steps, dragging Remus behind her.

Roman walked back up to his room with a sigh and picked up his phone from where he left it on the bed to find Logan had already texted him.

Logan: Roman, I apologize for contacting you so suddenly. I was wondering if you could perhaps come pick me up from school? Our meeting ran late today and I think my father has already gone to sleep.

Roman sighed and tipped his head back with a groan. He turned back to his phone and tried to push his annoyance aside.

Roman: I’ll be there in ten

Logan: Thank you.

Roman made it to school and texted Logan that he was there. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited and tried not to sigh aloud.

Logan pulled the door open and climbed into the car with a sigh. “Thank you, Roman.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Roman grumbled.

Logan seemed to sense that Roman was irritated, but thankfully he didn’t bring it up. Roman was pretty sure he would snap at him, which was the last thing he wanted to do, because Logan hadn’t done anything wrong and there was no reason for him to be irritated in the first place.

Roman dropped Logan off at his house and drove himself home before collapsing in his bed and falling asleep about three hours earlier than he normally did.

…

The following morning wasn’t any better. He got up much later than he usually did, and was still exhausted, despite having gotten almost four more hours of sleep than normal. Roman dragged himself out of bed and pulled some clothes on.

He made it down to breakfast and had taken about three bites when his mother spoke up. “Roman, could you go see what’s keeping your brother?”

Roman tried to hold back a grumble at the fact that he’d have to walk all the way back up the stairs, and stood up to do so.

“Remus?” he asked, opening his brother’s bedroom door, leaning on it, and trying not to fall asleep. “Are you— eating deodorant?”

Remus turned around to face him. “It tastes about how you think it would,” he confirmed, and took another bite out of it. “But I didn’t want eggs for breakfast, so.”

Roman stared at Remus for a second, trying to come up with something to say to that. “…Just come downstairs and sit at the table, okay?”

Remus grinned, set the deodorant down that now had a giant bite out of the top of it, and skipped past Roman and towards the stairs.

“I cannot fathom what Logan sees in you,” Roman muttered, shaking his head as he shut his brother’s door.

Roman didn’t pay attention much during breakfast, and before he could focus much on getting ready to go, Remus appeared in his room with about half of his stuff falling apart in his hands, and the other half dangling out of his backpack.

“If your lunch falls on my floor I will murder you,” Roman said irritably, scooping all of his books neatly into his backpack. He knew full well that Remus never bothered to use a lunchbox.

“Well, someone’s testy today,” Remus said, sounding slightly offended but at least managing to zip his backpack most of the way closed. “What’s wrong, Ro-ro?”

“Go to hell,” Roman snapped, slinging his backpack around his shoulder and walking across the hall to the bathroom. “If you’re not in the car in five minutes I’m leaving without you.”

Roman tried to ignore the guilt that cropped up suddenly, because Remus hadn’t really done anything wrong for once. It wasn’t his fault Roman was in a foul mood.

He wasn’t really intending to follow through on leaving without Remus, and it seemed Remus understood that, because he got to the car ten minutes after Roman did, who in fact hadn’t left yet.

Remus grinned at him as he opened the door. “So you waited for me after all. Don’t let anyone find out that Ro-ro really does have a heart.”

“Shut  _ up,” _ Roman snapped, pulling out of their driveway a little too fast.

Remus, of course, did not shut up, because Roman could never make him do anything. The car ride to school was filled with incessant chatter and annoyance, and Roman was so relieved by the time he pulled into a spot at the school.

He waited the ten seconds it took Remus to get all of his stuff gathered in some way and out of the car before he grabbed his own backpack, locked his car, and stomped into the school.

Logan was already in class when he got there, because of course he was. And because Roman couldn’t seem to stop destroying his day, he slammed his books down on his desk and sat down with a huff.

“Should I assume you need another ride today?” he snapped.

Logan glared at Roman a little bit. “Roman, I already told you I can get another ride most of the time. I’m sorry about last night. Do we need to keep bringing this up? Is it really that big of a deal?”

“I don’t know! Maybe!” Roman snapped, glaring away, except it wasn’t, and why couldn’t he just shut up already?

Luckily, he didn’t have time to say any other shitty things, because at that moment the bell rang and the teacher at the front of the room stood up and started talking. Roman resisted the urge to bang his head on his desk.

The rest of the day went about the same. Roman could barely focus in his classes, which extended to football practice and then rehearsal. Well, those parts weren’t anything new, anyway. God, he just couldn’t do anything right these days, could he?

The end of rehearsal was fast approaching when they took a break as Mrs. R went over some notes. Roman ran his hands through his hair and started backstage to get a drink from his water bottle, only to almost run into Patton as he turned around the side of the set.

“Jesus Christ Superstar!” Roman snapped, jerking backwards. “Do you have to stand, right there?”

Patton smiled back over at him in a passive-aggressive way that made Roman want to hit something. “We’re painting here, so yes.”

Roman was confused for a second by the ‘we’ until he noticed the other person crouching behind Patton, painting a different part of the set.

Roman glared at both of them as he walked past to find his water bottle, and if he accidentally knocked over their can of unused paint brushes as he passed? Whoops.

By the time he made it back over to the other side of the stage, Mrs. R was already giving notes, and Roman listened to his, which were mostly about the fact that he needed to put more emotion into certain scenes, something he already knew.

Roman grabbed his things and walked out before anyone else could talk to him, and since a lot of people had other stuff to clean up, he leaned against his car for a minute in the empty parking before he had to drive himself back home and tried not to feel guilty for leaving everyone else there.

“Roman?” a voice asked softly.

Roman jerked in surprise and glanced up to see Logan waiting at the side of his father’s car, about to climb in.

“Are you alright?” Logan asked. He looked down at the car, and then back up at him. “…Do you want a ride?”

“I have my own car to take home.”

“I just figured you might… want someone to talk to? It would be clear to anyone that you are upset.”

“Great, thanks,” Roman grumbled. “Not tonight, okay?” He walked around the car, opened the drivers door, and climbed inside, slamming it shut a little harder than was probably necessary.

…

His parents were still awake when he got home, which was unusual. Rehearsal ended pretty late.

“Hey, Roman?” his dad called as he was about to start up the stairs. “Can we talk to you for a moment?”

Roman stopped and turned. “What is it?”

“We just want to make sure you’re doing okay,” his mom said. “You seem to always be busy now, and you were in a really bad mood this morning, and you don’t seem to be feeling much better now.”

“I’m fine,” Roman said.

“Are you sure?” his dad asked, his brow furrowing in concern. “You know you can always talk to us.”

“Yeah, I know,” Roman said. “Did you need anything else?”

“Roman, sweetheart.” His mom stood up and walked over towards him. “We’re worried about you. Look, I know we spend a lot of time on your brother and his… eccentricities, but we love both of you. You’re just as important to us as he is.”

“Yeah. I know.” Roman turned back to the steps. “Anything else? Because if not, I have a newspaper article to write.”

“Roman, it’s late, you should go to bed,” his dad, standing up and moving next to his mom.

“It’s short, it’ll take me like fifteen minutes,” Roman said, starting up the steps. He made it to his room and locked his door before either of his parents could say anything else.


	8. Chapter 8

“Do you have to do that?” Janus asked with a sigh as Roman walked back across the stage.

Patton turned to him, shifting his smile into a frown. “Do what? What do you want me to say, Janus? We’re painting here.”

Janus gave him a deadpan look. “That’s not why you snapped at him.”

“What are you talking about? He was being rude.”

“Yes, but you still knew it would annoy him. You are remarkably passive aggressive when you want to be, Patton.”

“I wasn’t being passive aggressive,” Patton insisted. Janus gave him a look that said he clearly didn’t believe him.

“I wasn’t! Roman is a jerk, you can hardly blame me for pointing it out when it happens,” Patton said, scooping up the knocked over paintbrushes and putting them back in the cup.

“I would never. As long as you acknowledge that that’s called being passive aggressive. I mean, that’s the reason you joined the drama club in the first place, isn’t it?”

“What? No, it’s not! I joined the drama club because I was scared about coming out to Virgil and needed a place to be away from how stressed I was.”

“Sure. But you knew Roman was part of the drama club, and you knew how much he loved it.” Janus washed off his brush in the cup of water and dipped it in a different color. “That played a part in your decision whether you thought it did or not.”

Patton frowned. “No it didn’t. Why would I join the drama club because of Roman?”

“You tell me, you’re the one who did it.”

Patton stared at Janus. “No, I already said, I joined because I was stressed about the situation with Virgil.” He paused and chuckled a little anxiously. “Actually, I still am stressed about the situation with Virgil,” he muttered.

“Ah, so you’re taking it out on Roman.”

Patton gave Janus another baffled stare. “What? No. Could we stop talking about Roman? I don’t even  _ like _ Roman.”

Janus snorted.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just that for someone who doesn’t like him, you sure do stare at him an awful lot.”

“Wha— okay,  _ woah. _ I don’t  _ stare at him. _ ”

“Okay, sure.”

“I don’t!”

“Uh-huh, whatever you say.”

Patton paused as he realized he probably wasn’t going to get through to him. He sighed and turned back to painting the backdrop for the set.

Rehearsal didn’t go too much longer after that, and it only took a couple minutes for Patton to help Janus clean up. Patton was about to head out after his mom texted him that she was there, when he noticed Janus walking over to the table where his backpack was and sitting down.

Patton hesitated and reached into his backpack for the box of pop tarts he’d brought with him, and walked back over to the table.

Janus glanced up, looking surprised to see Patton still there.

“You… sticking around a while longer?” Patton asked hesitantly, ignoring the brief moment of panic that flashed across Janus’ face. He nodded hesitantly.

“I just need to… finish the schedule for what we’re doing next week,” he said.

Patton nodded back. “Okay. Here,” he handed Janus the box of pop tarts. “Just in case you get hungry. Y’know, before you go home for dinner.”

Janus swallowed as he accepted the box. “Thanks,” he said, looking like he was this close to begging Patton to not push for more information.

But Patton just smiled sadly and picked up his bag again, waving a little at Janus as he walked out, who didn’t offer any kind of response.

…

Virgil usually got to school before Patton did and was waiting at his locker so they could talk before classes started. It was such a consistent pattern that on that morning, when Patton got there and Virgil was nowhere to be seen, he started to worry almost immediately. He waited by his locker as long as he possibly could, and was about to call Virgil to see if he was alright when he walked in the front doors with his hood up and walked over to Patton, obviously exhausted.

“Virgil?” Patton said gently, leaning closer and offering his hand in case Virgil wanted to grab or squeeze it. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Virgil said, hunching further into his hoodie.

Patton bit his lip and pulled his hand back. “Do you need to get your stuff?”

“Huh?” Virgil glanced up. “Oh, yeah, that’s probably important.”

“Okay,” Patton said nervously, gently taking Virgil’s arm and pulling them both down the hall towards Virgil’s locker. He knew his combination by now, and since Virgil didn’t seem to be capable of doing much, Patton opened his locker and got the stuff for the first class they shared.

Virgil took them from Patton, his hands starting to shake, and followed Patton as closely as possible without stepping on the back of his feet until they got to their class. Patton sat them both in the back of the room, and the bell rang as he opened his notebook.

He found it pretty hard to focus for most of the class, too focused on Virgil, who was less focused than he was— he mostly seemed to be scribbling something that looked completely unrelated in his notebook in between breathing exercises.

At the end of class, before they both had to go to separate ones, Patton caught him in the hallway.

“You okay?” he asked. “You didn’t really look like you were paying attention.”

“Just… planning,” Virgil muttered, tucking the notebook closer to his chest.

“For?” Patton asked softly, with a sinking feeling he already knew what Virgil meant.

Virgil sighed, and showed Patton the notebook, which was a list of places Virgil had written down within two miles of the school that were, as the notebook put it, “relatively sheltered in cases of a storm.” That must have been why he showed up so late that morning.

“Virgil, I… I told you I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” Patton whispered, handing the notebook back.

Virgil stared at Patton incredulously. “Pat, you can’t reasonably be expected to keep that promise.”

“I’ll figure something out, Virgil. You’re going to be okay.”

Virgil sighed. “But I might not be,” he said. “I’m just…” He took a shaky breath in. “Trying to plan for every possible outcome.”

Patton opened his mouth to retort, but before he could say anything, the warning bell rang.

Virgil glanced towards his locker. “I gotta go. Talk to you at lunch, Patton.”

“Virgil, wait!” Patton whispered, trying not to raise his voice too much.

But Virgil was already walking away.

…

So, the whole situation with Virgil was quickly becoming an absolute nightmare. Patton meant it when he said he was going to try his absolute hardest to help, but he wasn’t sure it was going to be enough.

He thought he had seen Virgil when he was paranoid, but apparently he’d just had yet to see Virgil when he had a  _ reason _ to be paranoid. Virgil hands had started shaking consistently, he wasn’t eating nearly as much as he should, he was now avoiding Janus like the plague (more than he had been before, that is), and the worst part was that both of them were very aware that all of this was just going to make it  _ more _ likely that his parents noticed something was wrong.

Patton had started trying to either stay over at Virgil’s house or let Virgil stay over at his as much as he dared without it looking suspicious, and considering they’d loved sleepovers even before everything had gone down, that meant a couple times a week was doable.

Patton’s mother easily picked up on the fact that something was happening, but there was no way Patton was going to out Virgil to her. Over the next couple days he became very good at dodging questions. It didn’t feel great, but there wasn’t much else he could do.

Janus was also seeming to pick up on the fact that something was wrong, and Patton wasn’t sure if he had more of an idea as to what it was or not. He did know that he was checking in on Virgil every time he saw Patton, an obvious sign that if Virgil just extended the olive branch, Janus would be willing to work things out.

Patton had tried and so far failed to communicate this to Virgil. Which meant the only thing he was able to do right now was reassure Virgil as best he could and keep bringing Janus boxes of pop tarts. He had never felt more useless.

He spent most of his lunch hour, free time at home, and time at rehearsal (whenever he didn’t need to paint the set) fixing the cheerleader uniforms, just to give himself something to do. He got yelled at about it more than a few times by Roman, but that was fine. He could yell too.

Roman was a constant in everything that was going on. Patton was getting sick of him, as obviously he was getting so much worse along with everything else that was happening. It had gotten to the point where other students started to notice how much they hated each other too, and Janus had pulled Patton aside one day and said point-blank that something had to change or he had to quit the drama club. He sounded genuinely apologetic as he said it, and Patton got the feeling that he didn’t want Patton to quit any more than he did.

Patton had found, that despite everything else, that he did genuinely enjoy helping with the set. He loved painting it, he was starting to work on his drawing skills to see if he could help in different ways for the spring musical, and all the people in the drama club were so nice.

Well…  _ most _ of the people.

But the point is, he enjoyed being a part of the drama club, and he didn’t want to lose it. So of course Roman was putting that in jeopardy too.

Patton paused. No, Roman himself wasn’t putting that in jeopardy, the fact that they were fighting all the time was putting that in jeopardy. And… of course the show couldn’t lose one of their lead actors months into production. If he wanted to stay, he’d just have to stop fighting with Roman.

You know, during rehearsal. Easy enough.

That didn’t stop him from being annoyed by a Roman in any classes they had, or at football games, but he could cross that bridge when he came to it.

For now, he could cope with the massive amounts of stress that came with knowing how close Virgil was to being kicked out. And the fact that Janus already didn’t have a place to stay. And the fact that Roman was becoming an absolute nightmare to deal with. No problem. He wasn’t overwhelmed. He could just focus on his mom and her new partner, because that was amazing. And on all those uniforms he still had to fix. That would be a distraction. Nothing was hard to deal with right now, and besides, even if it was, other people had it much harder than him. What right did he have to complain?


	9. Chapter 9

“I’m not saying your in danger of being kicked off the team,” Coach Rogers said. “Or anything like that. I’m not even blaming all of this on you. But you’re the captain. Your attitude affects the rest of the team.”

Roman nodded, trying not to snap back what he was really thinking, which was that he could be the peppiest person in the world and it wouldn’t be able to carry an entire team, so why was he the only one getting yelled at? He could at least understand getting yelled at it in theatre, his character was something he had direct control over. Or at least, so he’d thought. Because he still couldn’t figure out what he was doing wrong there.

Coach Rogers finished what was either a completely unfair lecture or him blowing off some steam and then let Roman go so he could get to class, so he started out of the office and towards his locker.

Logan was already in class when he got there, and Roman sat down at his desk with a huff, turned away, and did his best to ignore him.

“Are you alright?” Logan asked hesitantly.

“Leave me alone,” Roman grumbled.

Logan sighed, but did just that.

Roman managed to take notes and block everything out for most of the class, but by the time it was over he was already ready to go home. Logan walked up towards him afterward and put a hand on his shoulder to try and get his attention, but Roman shrugged it off and glared back at him.

“Back off, Logan,” he hissed. “I don’t want to talk to you today.”

Logan started to glare back at him, but Roman pulled his backpack up on his shoulder and walked away before he could respond, shoving the guilt far down in his chest.

Roman didn’t really pay much attention during the following classes, and almost fell asleep during the class right before lunch. He only snapped back to attention when the bell rang, and stood up and started for the door a little later than usual.

Maybe that was why he ran into Patton on the way out. Roman glared down at him, and Patton glared right back.

“Could you move?” he snapped.

“You first,” Patton replied, crossing his arms.

“For Christ’s sake,” grumbled a voice from behind Patton. “I’ll move you both.”

A rough hand slammed into Roman’s side and pushed him away as the opposite one grabbed Patton and pulled him gently towards him.

Roman whirled around and glared at who could only be Virgil only to find him already ushering Patton into the classroom, despite his protests.

Roman huffed and started off towards his locker, still fuming.

He slammed his things down at the lunch table, and buried his head in his hands, not even bothering to pull his lunchbox open.

“…Roman?”

“Logan could you  _ not?” _ Roman snapped, dragging his head up. “Just this once, could you not try and talk? Whatever it is, I don’t care.”

Logan started glaring at him. “I was going to ask if you were  _ okay, _ Roman. You know, I’m getting a little fed up of you treating me like you’ve been.”

“Like what?” Roman snapped.

“Like I’m an annoyance to you. I understand you’re stressed right now, and I am trying to help you lighten your own load, but you treat me as if I am simply here to add something else to your plate.”

“Well apparently I have to drive you around all the time, so that’s something else you’re adding to my plate.”

Logan threw his hands up in the air, attracting the glances of people from the surrounding tables. “Roman, I have asked multiple times if you need me to get another ride, and you have always said no. Most of the time my father drives me home anyway! Why are you still treating this like a big deal?”

“Well, apparently you’re trying to help take things off my plate, so that doesn’t seem to be super helpful there.”

Logan gave a harsh, angry sigh.  _ “Roman. _ We are supposed to be friends. I shouldn’t have to put up with you taking all of your stress out on me!”

“Maybe stop adding to it and I’ll consider it!” Roman snapped.

Logan’s gaze turned almost furious. “I don’t have to be friends with you if you’re going to treat me like an accessory,” he hissed.

“Fine! Leave! See if I care! I don’t need you! In fact, it seems like I’ll have a lot less to worry about without you!”

Roman snatched his things back up off the table and stormed out of the cafeteria without waiting for Logan’s response.

…

“What is your  _ deal, _ Ro-bro?”

Roman glared at Remus from where he was writing a newspaper article on his bed. “Get out.”

“Not until you tell me what happened with Logan today.”

“He was being a dick, so I yelled at him! Why do you care, you never care about anything!”

Remus stepped into the room, looking very concerned in a way that was quite rare for him. “Logan was the one being a dick, huh?”

“Yeah! Logan! Logan and you!”

Now for once, Remus looked surprised. “Me?”

“Yeah! You wander around doing whatever the fuck you want, annoying the fuck out of Mom and Dad, and leave me to clean up your mess!”

Remus blinked at him. “Since when have I made it anyone’s job to clean up my mess? I  _ like _ the mess.”

“Yeah, well other people don’t! And you shouldn’t have to change for them, but the least you can do is not make other people have to pick up after you!”

“Didn’t I just say—”

_ “Get out!” _

Remus didn’t get out when Roman yelled, of course, because he never listened to anyone, but instead stared at Roman for a couple seconds looking thoughtful, then turned and grabbed onto the door frame, twirling himself out of the room.

Roman grabbed his pillow, screamed into it, gave himself three seconds to sit there not doing anything, before he climbed up, opened his computer again, and looked back at his newspaper article.

Fuck Logan. He didn’t need him. He didn’t need Remus. He didn’t need anyone. He was doing a wonderful job handling everything on his own. He could do this easily. He just had to finish writing this article and then go over his lines again, and then not agonize over what he had to change to somehow carry an entire football team, just for long enough to fall asleep. He might miss dinner, but he’d eat a big breakfast tomorrow.

See? He could handle this. Even Logan had to be impressed with his planning skills there. What a piece of cake.


	10. Chapter 10

Virgil wasn’t at his locker the next morning. Patton waited again. He really hoped he wasn’t looking for places he could potentially survive the night around the school again, because Patton was already worried about that prospect enough.

Patton waited for too long though, and the bell rang. His anxiety nearly shot through the roof with the sound, but Patton headed towards his first class, trying to take deep breaths and calm himself down because it was probably  _ fine. _ Everything was most likely  _ fine. _

Patton searched for Janus in the hallways in between classes, but their paths didn’t cross much during the school day, and unfortunately today was no different.

Patton had made it through three classes before he remembered he had Virgil’s phone number.

He pulled it out as the bell was ringing and ignored the sound for the moment as he typed his text.

Patton-cake: Hey Virgil, you weren’t at my locker this morning are you okay?

Virge: This is Mrs. Moore. Please do not contact us again. Virgil is no longer living with us.

Patton nearly dropped his phone.

Oh, no. Oh no, oh no.

Janus. He needed to find Janus.

Patton leapt from his seat, barely managing to grab his things before sprinting out of the classroom, ignoring the surprised looks from the people around him.

“Janus!” he screamed to the hallway, drawing quite a few more surprised looks. “Janus, where are— ow!” Patton stumbled back, rubbing his forehead from where he had just slammed into someone else.

That ‘someone else’ being exactly the last person Patton wanted to see right now.

“What the hell is your problem?” Roman snapped.

“Roman, I do not have time for this right now,” Patton said, trying to run around the other side of Roman.

“Oh, yeah, well I didn’t have time either when you were the one who ran into me.”

Patton glared at Roman, clenching his hands into fists and trying to ignore the way his heart was beating in his throat. “Back off, Roman.”

They were definitely getting some stares now. Most of the people Patton barely knew had told him before he was the sweetest person they’d ever met, and they couldn’t imagine him getting into a fight.

Roman was starting to glare too now, and a crowd was starting to form around them. “Oh, who’s going to make me, you?”

Patton nearly ran forward and shoved Roman, hoping to just get him out of the way and maybe get rid of a little bit of his nerves, forgetting that Roman was about a hundred pounds heavier than him and a football player, so when Roman retaliated with a shove of his own, Patton went flying backwards and landed hard on the ground. His head snapped backwards and hit the ground hard, and suddenly he was trying to sit up and very dizzy.

He vaguely registered someone yelling Roman’s name and pulling him backwards. It looked sort of like Logan, but Patton was too busy rubbing the back of his head to really be sure. He met eyes with Roman for a brief second, who was turning back around from looking at the person holding onto him. His eyes widened as he seemed to process what had just happened.

Then he shoved the other person off of him and turned and sprinted away from the shocked crowd.

The other person walked forward slowly and offered a hand to Patton. Patton accepted it, wobbling a little as he stood.

“I’m Logan,” Logan said, which Patton had already worked out at that point. “I’m sorry about my… about Roman.”

Patton had moved on from that, though, because there was something else that was more important that he had to be doing, what was it? Oh yeah.

“Janus,” Patton got out. “I need to find—”

“I’ll find him,” Logan said. “But I’m taking you to the nurse first.”

That was in fact what ended up happening. While Logan explained what had happened to the nurse, Patton sat on one of the beds while trying to keep his breathing steady, because everything was now building up even more than before, and then Logan said that he was going to find Janus and headed back out again. The nurse said he was going to talk to someone in the office about the fight, and Patton, now left alone, was trying to take deep breaths and calm himself down.

Virgil had been kicked out. He didn’t have his phone. Patton had no way of knowing where he was or if he was safe or—

“Patton?”

Patton whirled to face the entryway. “Janus!”

“Apparently you got into a sort-of-fight with Roman while yelling my name in the hallway. And here I thought Roman was the one with the flair for the dramatic.” Janus stepped towards the bed. “If you are worried about drama club—”

“Janus, Virgil was kicked out!”

All of the blood drained from Janus’ face. “What?”

Patton scrambled for his phone and showed Janus the text he’d gotten from Virgil’s— well, she wasn’t his mother anymore, was she?

Janus took the phone, and somehow seemed to grow even more pale as he read it. “Patton,” he said, looking desperately up at him. “Did he say anything to you about where he might go?”

“He— he was looking for spots around the school that would be good if there was a storm, but—”

“I have to go.”

Janus handed Patton his phone back and sprinted from the nurse’s office.

“Janus, wait!” Patton cried, standing to run after him and nearly falling back down with the wave of dizziness that washed over him.

Janus either didn’t hear him or didn’t care, because he kept running. Patton stumbled across the nurse’s office, grabbed a cup and filled it with water from the sink. He downed it in one go, which helped with the dizziness enough that he could run after Janus, but by that point he was already long gone, and Patton had no idea what direction he’d gone in.

He turned back and forth in the hallway, trying to avoid the concerned gazes of the few people left who were late for class, and before he knew it he was running.


	11. Chapter 11

Logan did not usually make a habit of getting involved in fights, and to be honest, he was still wrapping his head around the fact that he just had.

He was currently explaining to the principal what had happened, who was writing some things down. Eventually she thanked Logan, waved the nurse forward who had been standing in the doorway that Logan had yet to notice, and gestured for Logan himself to leave.

Logan had only made it out of the office, however, when he was met by about the last person he expected to see, but apparently this morning just decided to keep throwing curveballs at him.

“Remus?”

Remus glanced up from his phone from where he was leaning against the lockers across the hallway and grinned. “Hey, hottie.”

Wonderful.

Logan cleared his throat and glanced down, trying very hard not to shuffle his feet. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Actually, yeah.” Remus walked across the hall, wrapped an arm around Logan’s shoulders (which was not helping  _ anything _ ), and started walking them both down the hallway. “So I’m pretty sure you’ve noticed by now that something’s up with Ro-bro.”

Logan sighed. “I have gotten something of an idea, yes,” he said, with a slight roll of his eyes.

“So what happened with you two? He won’t tell me.”

Logan paused in surprise and turned to face Remus. “You’re concerned?”

Remus shrugged. “Well, he’s no fun like this. Normally I like to tease him about how boring he is, but what’s the point if it just makes him have a breakdown?”

Logan supposed that was about as close to an actual answer as he was going to get. “You think he’s having a breakdown?”

Remus snorted. “He’s practically falling apart at the seams.”

Logan shoved down the large amount of concern that came up at the prospect. “Ah.”

“So are you gonna tell me what happened or no?”

Logan sighed, and told Remus everything that had happened between the two of them before. Remus was unusually quiet the whole time, simply nodding and giving a little “hmm” every now and then.

They both stopped outside the auditorium and leaned against the opposite wall, not going in.

“Well, it does sound like he treated you like a real piece of garbage,” Remus said.

“Um. Yes.”

Remus glanced over at Logan. “He needs you, though.”

Logan turned to Remus, who was giving him a pointed look.

“I don’t have to put up with being treated like that.”

“No one said you had to. But you also only talked to him about it once, and that was kind of a screaming match. Maybe instead of writing off your friendship entirely, try talking to him again now that you’ve both calmed down? If Roman is still a dick, you have my full permission to kick him to the curb.”

Logan turned and stared at the space in front of him as he thought. Remus might have had a point. And Logan was always going to be worried about Roman.

Whether he wanted to or not, he cared about the idiot.

Logan sighed. “Alright. Next time I see him, I’ll try and talk to him again. But I’m not going to let him treat me like shit just because he’s not okay right now.”

“And no one should expect you to,” Remus said, and he sounded sincere. Neither of them said anything for another minute.

“You can come home with me this afternoon if you want,” Remus said. “What do you want to do until then?”

Logan glanced over at Remus in surprise. “I assumed we would go back to class,” he said in confusion. “I’m not sure what you’re suggesting.”

“I’m suggesting we play hookie and go on a date.”

Logan nearly choked on his own saliva and ended up having a coughing fit into his elbow. Remus patted him on the back a couple times, which was about the opposite of helpful.

Logan pulled back to find Remus clearly seconds away from laughter. “So is that a yes?”

Logan felt his cheeks heating up, and he cleared his throat.

“That would certainly be more enjoyable than, um, my English class.”

“Wow, you  _ do _ like me,” Remus said, grinning even wider and definitely doing terrible things to Logan’s heart rate. “Come on, I know this diner where you can get anything you want in a milkshake. We should try it with sushi. You know, for science and shit.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea.”

“Thank you! So you coming?”

Logan nodded, not really trusting himself to actually agree with words. Remus beamed and waved them both towards the exit.

Logan followed him towards what could only be his car, which was painted green and purple and covered in spikes. It also looked like it could fall apart if someone opened a door wrong.

“Do you think all the decorations are necessary when this car looks like it could die at any second?” Logan asked.

“Absolutely. Do you want milkshakes or not?”

“With sushi in them? Give me a moment to make a pros and cons list.”

Remus grinned. “Too late! We’re off!”

He opened the passenger door and grinned at Logan, clearly his best attempt to hold it open like a gentleman.

Logan chuckled and climbed in before Remus bounced around to the other side of the car, taking them towards what would definitely be a mistake in the milkshake department.

In the social life department, however, Logan was fairly sure this day would be quite agreeable.


	12. Chapter 12

Roman was pretty sure breathing was supposed to be easier than this. He dug his hands deeper into his hair and pulled in another gasp, trying and failing to make it less shaky. He tucked himself further into the shadows, easy with the lights in the auditorium still off. But he wasn’t exactly sure that the dark was helping in the first place, because that just made him look around desperately, trying to find something he could see and latch onto as a grounding point.

Logan had talked about those, right? He had said something about grounding being important when one was panicking. Roman wasn’t sure what right he had to panic, given that everything that had happened so far was his own fault— he’d been failing in drama club and football. He’d joined the newspaper because he thought that would be a good idea. He’d pushed Logan away. He’d fought with—

A door to Roman’s right slammed open and someone else stumbled into the auditorium shortly before all but collapsing against the set of stairs that led to the stage.

There. That was something to focus on that wasn’t him. Roman pushed himself up on shaking legs, and started over towards the other person, not able to tell who they were in the dark.

“Hey,” he said. His voice was still shaking, making it obvious that he was panicking himself. “Are you— are you okay?”

The person looked up at him. “Roman?”

_ “Patton?” _

“What are you—” Patton cut himself off with a panicked breath of his own, before burying his head in his knees. His shoulders started to shake, and it took Roman a second to realize that he was sobbing.

He had no idea how to react to this. There was no way Patton could fake this kind of emotion. Not on this level. And why would he bother in front of him?

“Uh…” Roman managed to take a somewhat deep breath, calming down enough to be able to put a hand on Patton’s shoulder. “It’s… it’s gonna be okay, Patton.”

“No it’s not!” Patton cried. “Virgil— Virgil is gone! I don’t know where he is or if he’s safe or if Janus will find him or if  _ he’s _ safe or— or —”

“Virgil is gone how?” Roman asked. “Did he run away?”

Patton shook his head, and pulled his head up to look Roman, tears running down his cheeks. “His parents threw him out,” he choked out. “And I don’t know if he’s okay. I wanted to take him in myself the second I knew but— but we can’t even afford to take Janus in, much less Janus and Virgil, and I— I can’t—” Patton buried his head in his knees again and started shaking.

Roman stared at Patton, trying to come up with something to say. This was a very different picture than the image of Patton he’d built in his head. This Patton seemed to care about his friend, to the point that he was hurting himself too. And he apparently had a couple of friends who were homeless. That was awful, and Roman totally got why it stressed him out.

Oh. Maybe he could start there?

“We have three guest bedrooms,” he said hesitantly.

Patton sniffed hard and looked up at Roman. “What?”

“We have three guest bedrooms, and we definitely have the ability to take in two kids. I’ll take in Janus and Virgil. Or I’ll ask my parents about it, at least.”

Patton wiped at his eyes and stared at Roman in confusion. “Why would you do that?”

“Why would I not allow two kids to fend for themselves on the streets? I’m not a monster.” Roman winced, and sighed. “Despite how much I’ve been acting like one.”

He looked back at Patton. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have shoved you. I shouldn’t be treating you like I’ve been at all. I just… I thought you were faking. I didn’t think an actual person could exist who’s as selfless as you are, who literally always thinks of others first.”

Patton sighed and sniffed again, tucking his head into his knees. “I— I don’t know why I’m freaking out so much,” he muttered. “I’m just worried about Janus and Virgil, and the only other thing going on is that I have to fix all the cheer uniforms.”

Roman raised his eyebrows. “You’re fixing  _ all _ of them by yourself? Wow. No wonder you’re always carrying them around.”

He hesitated, before moving to sit down next to Patton, giving him time to tell him to stop if he wanted to. “You know,” he said slowly. “It’s not your responsibility to look out for everyone else.”

Patton looked over at Roman. “Why are you trying to comfort me?” he asked.

Roman shifted awkwardly. “Because you have every right to be freaking out, and you don’t seem to get that.” He sighed again. “And because I’ve been a jerk and I kinda owe it to you.”

“Oh.” Patton turned to face him. “Well if that’s where this is coming from, I’ve been a jerk too. And you were freaking out when I came in here. What’s up with you?”

Roman opened his mouth and let it hang there for a second. “Well, now I’m embarrassed to say.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you had such good reasons and mine’s just… all about me.”

Patton tipped his head in curiosity, not seeming to care that Roman’s reasoning was inherently selfish. He sighed.

“I just… there’s too much,” he muttered. “I can’t seem to do anything right lately. I’m doing bad in the play and the whole team is failing and apparently it’s all my fault. And I don’t have time to focus on the newspaper too, but I have to, and Remus and I are fighting now, and Logan—” Roman buried his head in his hands, took a deep breath, and pulled his head back up. “But I’m fine. It’s fine. I just need to work harder. Figure out what I’m doing wrong with the play and raise morale in football, or something. And then I can have more time to work on newspaper articles.”

“Um… none of that sounds like it will help,” Patton said hesitantly.

Roman waved his hand dismissively. “I can handle it.”

“Really? Because you don’t seem like you’ve been handling it that well if this morning was any indication.”

“I’m fine. I’m just not trying hard enough.”

“It seems like you’re trying hard to distract yourself from something else,” Patton said softly.

Roman opened his mouth and let it hang there for a moment, then shut it again. “I’m not—”

“You don’t have to tell me what it is,” Patton said. “If you don’t want to. I mean…” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “It’s not like we’re super close friends who tell each other everything.”

Roman looked away just as awkwardly as he realized that he just poured half his heart out to Patton Sanders.

Neither of them said anything for another minute.

“Do you want to go look for Virgil?” Roman asked. “I have a car.”

Patton turned to look at him again, blinking quickly enough that it was obvious he was trying to hold back tears. “Please?”

Roman nodded and stood up, offering a hand to Patton, who took it and stood up on wobbling legs. Roman made a mental note to stop by his locker and grab his water bottle before they went anywhere. Then he walked out of the auditorium with his least favorite person to help him find his best friend, which was about the opposite of the way he expected his day to go.

Roman was surprised to find that he didn’t really mind.


	13. Chapter 13

Virgil was pretty sure he’d never had a panic attack in public before. He could check that off the list.

Granted, he wasn’t really in the eyesight of anyone else, tucked under the overpass like he was, but he was pretty sure it was safe to say it still counted as public. This was going to be cold in the winter, wasn’t it? He might have to find a different place to stay then. He didn’t even know how he would go about that. Then again, he was still new to all of this, he was sure he could figure it out in time.

Virgil buried his head in his knees and took as deep a breath as he could, pulling his hoodie further around him. It had been one of the few things he’d managed to grab before sprinting out of the house. He hadn’t even gotten to his phone. He hoped Patton wasn’t freaking out right now.

The cars flying past him weren’t exactly helping his anxiety right now. He was about to pull out his notebook that he had managed to grab and find the next location he’d come up with to see if it would at least be a little more private when he heard the familiar voice of about the last person he wanted to see right now.

“Virgil!”

Virgil hesitantly pulled his head up from his legs, spotting Janus running up the slope towards him until he came to a stop and knelt in front of him. “Thank goodness,” he huffed, clearly out of breath. “Patton said your mom texted you. This was the first place I came when I was kicked out, I figured it would be a good place to start, you—” Janus let out a relieved sigh. “Are you okay?”

Virgil shook his head, trying not to bury his head in his legs again, and looked away. He wondered vaguely how long it had taken Janus to start thinking of “Mom” as “Virgil’s mom.”

Janus was silent for a moment. He shifted to sit down next to Virgil. “I’m assuming the reason you’re here is something similar to mine?” he murmured softly.

Virgil stifled a sob. “I— I’m sorry,” he choked out. “Janus, I—”

“It’s okay,” Janus said. He wrapped his arms around Virgil, and he immediately melted into the touch. “It’s gonna be okay, alright?”

“I— I should have just— I should have helped you, or—”

“Hey, I mean it, it’s okay. It was scary for both of us. We’re here now, and that’s all we can deal with, alright?”

Virgil sniffed and turned to bury his head in Janus’ arms. It wasn’t okay, because if this was how Virgil was taking this with help, he couldn’t imagine what Janus had dealt with alone, and much younger than he was now. And it was his fault he had to deal with it alone. But he also still knew Janus well enough to know he wasn’t going to get angry. Especially not while Virgil was having a breakdown.

Virgil let out a shaky sigh and took a few more deep breaths, finding it easier to calm down when someone else was there.

“I have a spot near the school that’s better than this,” Janus said softly. “On weekends we can spend the day in the library, but for now let’s go back there, okay?”

Virgil nodded, and they both stood up. They weren’t super far from the school in the first place, and would likely get there in about ten minutes or so, but Virgil still wasn’t sure he could make it that far with how much his legs were shaking. He hadn’t even had a chance to eat breakfast, he had walked into the kitchen to find his parents holding up his phone, navigated to his text conversation with Patton.

“So,” Janus said slowly. “How are you feeling about being… not straight?”

Virgil laughed a little and buried his head in his hands. “Fuck, Jan, I don’t—” He sniffed and pushed his hair back from his face. “I don’t know what to think. I haven’t even had any  _ time _ to think about it with what a nightmare everything has been lately. How— how did you ever have the courage to come out?”

“Well, no precedent, for one,” Janus said. “I had no idea how they would react, and that made it… a tad easier than it would have been, in retrospect and all. “And I’m pretty sure I didn’t have anywhere near as much internalized shit as you’ve probably built up.” Janus nudged him gently in the side. “There’s nothing wrong with it, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Virgil muttered, pretty sure it was going to take him a long time to believe that, and pretty sure Janus knew that too.

He didn’t say anything else to that, and they made it a couple more blocks when suddenly a car pulled over to the side of the road.

Both of them looked up in surprise as the passenger door flew open, and Patton jumped out, sprinting towards them.

“Virgil!” he cried, and Virgil found himself tackled in a hug. “Oh my goodness,  _ Virgil, _ I was so worried, you—” Patton pushed him back to arms length. “Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?”

“Patton,” Virgil said, pulling him in for another hug. “I’m fine, I promise. Well, I mean not  _ fine _ , exactly, I— you know what I mean.”

Patton let out a sob, and Virgil’s heart ached in his chest. “I do,” Patton whispered, squeezing Virgil even tighter before pulling back and looking him over again, likely still checking for injuries. “Oh, Virgil, I’m so sorry.”

Virgil pulled him in for a third hug, intending to stay like that for a long while, when he noticed someone else had stepped out of the car and was starting to walk over.

“Roman?”

Roman waved awkwardly. “Hello.”

“What— what are you doing here?” Virgil asked, as Patton pulled back and glanced back at Roman.

“Yes, I’m very confused,” Janus said. “I didn’t think you two…” he cleared his throat. “Got along.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Virgil muttered.

“We had a long necessary conversation,” Roman said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Lots of apologies and heartfelt sharing.”

Patton chuckled a little. “We were looking for you guys,” he said.

“Both of you?” Janus asked, raising an eyebrow. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m very glad that drama club will be quieter now, but you don’t really know us that well, Roman.”

“Yes, about that.” Roman wrung his hands, clearly trying to psyche himself up to say something. “I have a proposition for you.”


	14. Chapter 14

Roman’s house was huge. Patton was a little curious how he wasn’t already known as the rich kid at school, but he put it out of his mind lest he say something unintentionally rude to his parents. They would probably already be disapproving to see them all coming back here in the middle of the school day, he didn’t need to be rude on top of it.

“I could fit everything I owned and more in this room,” Janus muttered, clearly having the same thought.

“Mom? Dad?” Roman called. “Can I talk to you?”

“Roman?” Two people walked in from the other room, clearly Roman’s parents. “What are you doing home? Who are these people?”

“Uh, this is Patton, Janus, and Virgil. They’re my, uh… some people I know. Can I talk to you about something? In the kitchen?”

Both of them exchanged a glance, and then Mrs. Prince nodded, and they both headed into the other room.

Patton stayed behind with Janus and Virgil, feeling about as awkward as possible. Both Virgil and Janus seemed to pick up on that, because they were both smirking at each other, and then back at him. He was about to try and bring up something to talk about that was entirely unrelated to the fact that they were all in Roman’s house, when the front door opened.

All three of them turned to see Logan and Remus, Roman’s twin brother, walking in. They both stopped when they noticed the three of them sitting on the couch.

“Well, hi there,” Remus said. “What are the three of you doing in my house?”

“We came here with Roman,” Patton said, rubbing the back of his neck as he gestured towards the kitchen. “Long story short you might be getting some new roommates.”

Remus raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry?”

Before any of them could reply, Roman and his parents walked back in from the other room.

“Oh, and now there are more people here,” Mr. Prince said. “Hello Remus, Logan.”

Both of them waved.

“Okay,” Mrs. Prince said. “So we’ve talked over some things, and yes, Janus and Virgil can stay here.”

“I’m sorry, what? What exactly did we miss?” Logan asked.

“I don’t know, where were you two?” Roman asked.

“On a date!” Remus said happily. “Oh yeah, Mom, Dad, I have a boyfriend now, his name is Logan!”

Patton glanced back over at Roman to see the surprised, but also relatively happy look on his face. “Okay, so clearly I missed something too,” he said.

“Well okay, since we’ve all missed some things, who wants to play a round of catch up?” Patton asked, looking around the room.

No one seemed to object to that, so eventually Virgil hesitantly took up the conversation and explained what had been happening to him lately, with both Patton and Janus adding in parts when they could. By the end of it, everyone seemed to at least be on board with Virgil and Janus staying.

“Okay, but here’s my question,” Logan said. He pointed at Patton while looking at Roman. “Since when do the two of you get along well enough to be able to figure all of this out?”

Patton and Roman both looked at each other and looked away quickly. “We uh, talked,” Roman said, shuffling back and forward on his feet. “About stuff.”

“Stuff?” Janus asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yep,” Patton said quickly. “Stuff. That we had to talk about. And we apologized for being jerks. And yeah.” He looked away and fidgeted with the hem of his shirt.

“Okay, we get it! We can pick up on the vibe, you can stop being awkward now!” Virgil called. Patton glanced back over to see him hesitating before looking back at Mr. and Mrs. Prince. “You’re really okay with us staying here?” he asked.

Mrs. Prince nodded. “Yes. It’s probably going to take us a bit to figure everything out, but we’re not going to let you live on the streets.”

Patton breathed a sigh of relief, and headed over to the other couch to wrap his arms around Virgil. Janus was sitting next to them, but looked a little too stunned at what was happening to really say anything, so Patton pulled him into the hug too.

The three of them sat there for a minute as everyone else in the room seemed to get that they might need some space, and headed back into the kitchen.

“Well,” Virgil said softly. “This has been… a morning.”

Janus chuckled a little from over on Patton’s other side. “I agree, it has.”

“I’m so glad you guys are okay,” Patton said, pulling them both closer to him. “I was so worried.”

“Yeah, of course you were,” Virgil said, pulling back a little. “Are you doing okay, Pat?”

Patton glanced over at Virgil in surprise. “I’m not the one who—”

“Yeah, but you had to be scared. This stuff is scary, for everyone who’s involved.”

“Virgil’s right, you’ve been affected by everything too,” Janus said. “It’s okay if you need to take some time to process it.”

Patton tried to come up with something to say. He didn’t get very far, however, because Virgil turned to face him better and hugged him, and Patton burst into tears.

He was pretty sure he got out some kind of apology, but Virgil dismissed it immediately and just pulled him closer. Janus came forward and hugged him from behind as Patton wailed every bit of worry he’d been feeling into Virgil’s shoulder.

He wasn’t sure quite how long they stayed there, but he pulled back to see Virgil wiping away a couple tears of his own. “Virgil, I love you,” Patton said, pulling him in for another, albeit much quicker hug.

“I love you too, Pat,” Virgil said warmly. “Thank you so much.”

Patton waved it off. “I’d do it for anyone,” he said. “Especially you.”

“I know. But still, thank you.”

Janus cleared his throat awkwardly. “I… very much appreciate everything you’ve done for me,” he said quietly. “I’m not sure how I’ll ever be able to repay you.”

“No need to, Janus,” Patton said, pulling him back over to hug him again, because there was not nearly enough of that happening right now. “That’s what friends are for.”

“Ah, so does that make you friends with Roman now?” Janus asked, raising a teasing eyebrow.

“I… hope so,” Patton admitted, glancing away. He wasn’t sure why his cheeks were suddenly warming, but that couldn’t be related.

“Well, you know,” Virgil mused, sounding much more sinister than he had a second ago. “Since we’re living with him now, we could probably talk you up if you wanted.”

“What? Why would I want that?”

Virgil snickered, and Patton glanced between him and Janus, who was hiding a smirk behind his hand.

“Seriously, why would I want that? What am I missing here?”


	15. Chapter 15

Roman hadn’t usually known Remus to have an agenda, but the way he ushered them all into the other room and then loudly asked both of their parents if he could ask them something was much too obviously deliberate to not have been intentional.

Roman couldn’t say he was irritated. He’d wanted to talk to Logan anyway.

“Roman, I think we should talk about—”

“Logan, I just wanted to say that I’m really—”

They both stopped when they realized the other one was talking.

“Sorry, you go first,” Roman said.

Logan sighed. “I think we need to talk. I know that I got very angry with you before, but I would very much like to continue to remain friends with you if that’s possible.”

Roman looked down. “I would too,” he said quietly. “I’m… I’m sorry, Logan,” he said. “I was falling apart, and it wasn’t fair of me to take that out on you. You hadn’t done anything wrong. You were actually trying to help.”

“I… appreciate that,” Logan said. “Do you know what was wrong?”

“I don’t know if it was one specific thing,” Roman muttered. “I think I was trying too hard to prove myself and just adding more stress on top while attempting to do that. And I ended up taking all of that out on you. And Patton. And Remus. Come to think of it, I should apologize to him too.”

“Okay,” Logan said slowly. “But you know that you don’t need to prove anything, right?”

Roman glanced up. “Huh?”

Logan stood up and walked over to stand in front of him. “Roman, we all love you. Remus, your parents and I. You don’t have to prove anything to us. We’re going to love you no matter what.”

“No matter what? What if I like, murdered someone?”

Logan gave him a deadpan look. “Roman, that is a worst case scenario that I sincerely doubt will come to pass, and also missing the point entirely.”

Roman smiled a little sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck. “I love you guys too,” he said. “I think I just wanted you to be proud of me.”

There was a moment of silence, and then to his shock, Roman found himself pulled into a hug with Logan.

“We  _ are _ proud of you,” Logan said firmly. “Roman,  _ I _ am proud of you, for many reasons. Not the least of which being you apologized for your mistakes. That’s not easy.”

Roman blinked quickly to try and stop tears from welling up in his eyes. He wrapped his arms around Logan’s back and all but buried his head in his shoulder. They didn’t hug very often, he’d forgotten how good Logan was at it.

He sniffed, which thankfully Logan did not acknowledge, and wiped at his eyes before pulling back to look at him. “Thanks, Logan,” he murmured. “I promise I’m going to do better, okay?”

“Okay. But don’t overwork yourself. That was the problem in the first place.”

Roman chuckled. “I’m going to do better and take an appropriate amount of breaks to relax.”

“Good.” Logan smiled at him.

“Okay, enough, Nerdy Wolverine,” Roman said, shoving Logan gently on the shoulder. “Since when are you this sappy?”

“I do not enjoy it. I plan to show no emotion for the next three days to make up for it.”

Roman laughed, and smiled wider at Logan, who continued to talk about the cleansing process for too much emotional expression, and things started to fall back into a normal feeling, one that Roman had desperately missed.

…

“Hey.”

Remus looked up from his bed, that was currently covered in what seemed like leftover candy wrappers that he was arranging in a specific way. “Roman,” he said with a grin. “Would you like to join me in creating the ultimate candy bar?”

“You’re doing what?”

“I’m getting all of the crumbs from these and putting them all together to make one candy bar. I think it’ll be pretty small, but I’m sure it will taste delicious.”

For once, Roman didn’t have an immediate objection to that. “…Alright,” he said hesitantly, walking forward to sit on an empty space on the bed. “But you might want to change your sheets before you go to sleep tonight.”

“I can’t even remember the last time I changed my sheets.”

Roman gave a breathy laugh. “Of course you can’t.”

“So, why’re you here? You don’t normally come to visit my trash heap. Is this about Janus and Virgil?”

The two were currently sharing one of the guest bedrooms, and they were planning on going shopping the next day to get them some new clothes. It was still a little awkward having them here, but Roman didn’t regret it for a second, and he was sure that would fade with time. It also wasn’t why he was here.

“I’m sorry, Remus.”

Remus gave Roman a slightly baffled look. “Huh?”

“I’m referring to my snapping at you a few days ago. I’m sorry. I was trying to find an outlet to vent my feelings into. Next time I’ll use an object.”

Remus rolled his eyes. “Please, it’s not like you hurt my feelings. But you know it’s not your responsibility to look out for me, right?”

Roman didn’t reply. A couple seconds later Remus raised an eyebrow at him. “Right?”

Roman sighed. “When we were little,” he explained. “A lot of people thought you were weird.”

“I hope they still do.”

“That’s not my point. Remember in third grade when Jack Benson was bullying you all the time?”

“Oh, that loser? Eh, who cares?”

“You did, Remus,” Roman protested. “Come on, I could tell.”

Remus said nothing, adjusting a candy wrapper on the bed. “Tell anyone and I’ll slit your throat,” he said eventually.

“I’m not going to tell anyone. But Jack Benson really liked me. So when I eventually yelled at him to leave you alone, he backed off pretty much immediately. And that’s when I realized that I had to protect you if I could. And then I just kind of kept doing it.”

Remus knocked on Roman’s head with his knuckles in a “anyone in there” gesture. “Roman, that was almost a decade ago. I appreciate it, but you don’t need to keep protecting me. I care way less what anyone thinks of me than I did in third grade.”

Roman smiled a little. That was definitely true.

“Plus, it seems to be stressin’ you out. So you can just sit back and relax, okay? I can take care of myself.”

Roman smiled a little more. “Okay,” he said eventually. “Thanks, Remus.” He hesitated. “Love you.”

“Love you too, Ro-bro. Now come on, the crumbs in this one are stuck.”

…

Roman talked to his parents, too. He didn’t feel the need to apologize to them as much, but he did tell them the kind of things he’d been going through lately, and they reassured him that they loved him, and were going to help him if he wanted them to, which was completely unnecessary.

…But nice.

Having Janus and Virgil living with them was also nice. Janus was surprisingly funny, and the only awkward moment they had was when Roman had caught him in the bathroom staring at the scar on his face. He’d asked him if he was alright, and Janus had muttered something about his parents, which is when Roman let it go, after letting him know he could talk about it if he wanted.

Virgil was unsurprisingly funny. He had a deadpan style of humor that reminded Roman very much of Logan, and instantly made him popular with Remus. Janus was liked by him too, actually. The three of them seemed to get along like a house of fire, which Roman was already sure was only going to lead to disaster.

Logan dating his brother was quite an interesting experience. He came around a lot more often, which Roman definitely didn’t mind, but he still couldn’t imagine what anyone could see in Remus as dating material. Granted, he was his brother, and that might have played a bit of a factor. But still.

Roman had ended up quitting the newspaper. Emile didn’t seem at all offended. On the contrary, he sounded almost relieved, and like he’d known it was coming. He’d had a pep talk with the football team that he was actually pretty proud of, especially when their performance started to go uphill, at least a little bit. Hopefully the trend would continue. And he’d finally figured out his problem in the play. Turns out his character, who was connecting his sense of worth to his actions and how he looked to other people, had more in common with him than he’d thought.

But there was still one problem.

Patton.

The fact that he wasn’t faking how nice he was had been established, and now that Roman had come to terms with that fact, he… well, he had never been one to deny his crushes. He fell hard and fast. Remus was right, after all. He did have a tendency to go for the bleeding heart types.

The group consisting of the six of them was pretty inseparable at this point, and Roman was fairly sure his crush was starting to become obvious. He never had been good at hiding his feelings. But at the same time, it was Patton. He wasn’t exactly the most observant person on the planet. Roman could deal, and eventually the feelings would go away. Piece of cake.


	16. Chapter 16

So life was pretty good now, if Patton did say so himself. He’d talked to his mom about everything that had happened (bar Virgil being gay), and she had given him a huge hug, told him how proud she was, and then gotten them pizza for dinner as a celebration of everything working out. They’d also had a talk to make sure Patton understood that bottling everything up wasn’t healthy, and that he needed to both talk to other people as well as take some time for himself. Patton was starting to understand it, at least.

Virgil and Janus both seemed to be doing much better at Roman’s. Janus had already begun to give Patton a lot of pop tarts in return, which Patton had already told him wasn’t necessary but he insisted on doing anyway. Virgil seemed to be much less anxious than he had been, especially recently, around people who he was sure would support him. He told Patton he had come out to Janus, mostly because he’d guessed, but no one else yet.

“I just… I don’t know, I have a lot of stuff to work though,” he muttered. “I just don’t feel ready. Please don’t tell anyone.”

“Virgil, I would  _ never,” _ Patton said, looking Virgil in the eyes with the most sincere gaze he could. “That’s for you to do yourself, whenever you  _ are _ ready. I promise, I will never out you, or anyone, without permission.”

Virgil gave a relieved sigh and gave Patton a hug, which they’d been doing even more than usual lately.

“Being surrounded by a bunch of other gay people helps,” Virgil muttered as he pulled away, and Patton laughed.

“Speaking of which, when are you going to ask Roman out?”

Patton instantly looked away and started fidgeting with his hands. “I uh, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, sure he was doing a terrible job at hiding his obvious crush.

“Jesus, Patton,” Virgil said, rolling his eyes. “You two have already experienced the worst your relationship could get anyway. What exactly are you scared of?”

“Did I seriously just get asked ‘what exactly are you scared of’ by  _ you?” _

“Okay, that’s fair. But seriously, Patton, he either likes you back, which he totally does by the way, or he doesn’t and you remain friends while it’s awkward for a little bit. You two have dealt with awkwardness already. Just go for it.”

“Okay, you have a point there,” Patton admitted. “I’ll think about it.”

And he did plan to, in between getting to know everyone new who was suddenly in his life. Roman, his mom, and Patton’s own mom were all helping him finish the cheerleading uniforms he had promised to do, after he hesitantly admitted that it was stressing him out. Through sessions of that, usually done at Roman’s house, he got to know everyone very well. Roman’s parents were both very sweet and supportive of all four kids now living under their roof. They had even met Jordan when they dropped off Patton and his mother one day, and they all seemed to get along wonderfully, which was a relief for Patton in a way he hadn’t really understood at the time.

Logan was much more serious than the people Patton was used to spending time with, but he still very much enjoyed talking to him about the things they both enjoyed.

Remus was a different story entirely. It had taken Patton a while to get used to him. He wasn’t quite sure what Logan saw in him, but he supposed that’s why Logan was the one dating him.

And then there was Roman.

Patton had seen a completely different side to Roman ever since they’d made up. He had never expected Roman to be the kind to take in two kids he didn’t know off the streets, or apologize so sincerely for his mistakes, or even admit that he’d made them for that matter. But now that Patton was paying attention to different aspects of him, Roman seemed like an entirely new person.

Both of them had apologized one more time for being jerks in a setting that wasn’t fueled by panic and desperation, and then they’d let it go. They had both messed up there, after all, and they had both made up for it and agreed to do better.

And according to Virgil and Janus, they were both now crushing hard. Patton wasn’t sure whether he believed him or not.

But Virgil was right in that their relationship couldn’t get too much worse than it had once been. He didn’t think it was very likely, either. He very much doubted that Roman wanted to go back to being enemies again.

So he came up with a plan and put it in action on a Friday afternoon.

Roman often drove Virgil and Janus to school, but Remus usually drove Logan in his own car. For that day specifically, Remus had hitched a ride with Roman, Logan had gotten a ride from his mother before she left for work, and Patton had gotten special permission from his mother to drive their car. Then, after school, Remus insisted on taking Janus and Virgil somewhere to buy them some new jackets for the upcoming colder weather. Logan had tagged along, and they all took the only car, leaving Roman without a ride. And Patton with one.

“I don’t understand why I couldn’t have gone with them. I probably should have. I don’t even want to  _ know _ what kind of jackets Remus thinks are appropriate for Janus and Virgil.”

Patton chuckled nervously and pulled open the passenger door. Roman got in without noticing how Patton was holding it open, and Patton walked around to the other side to get into the driver’s seat.

They both chatted comfortably during the first part of the ride, when Roman still thought that Patton was taking him home. It was only once Patton drove straight past his street that he gave him a weird look.

“Um, Patton? My house is back there.”

“I know,” Patton said, purposely keeping his gaze very fixed on the road.

“So where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

“Oh, you’re surprising me,” Roman said, smiling. “Well, I have never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Drive away, my dear sir.”

Patton tried very hard not to blush, and he was pretty sure he mostly succeeded.

He pulled up in front of the roller rink a couple minutes later, and Roman lit up as he climbed out of the car. “Hey, I love roller skating! How did you know?”

“I asked Logan,” Patton admitted with a nervous smile. He locked the car and they both walked in. They paid for their skates, and shared a thing of fries before going out on the rink, due to having just gotten out of school and being a bit peckish.

Roman spent a couple laughs laughing at Patton as he passed him on the wall, before he took pity and helped him up, skating them both around the rink while holding onto his hands, which made Patton blush far too much. But when he looked over at Roman, he was blushing too.

Patton opened his mouth, about to say something, when the lights dimmed overhead and the announcer mentioned a couple’s skate.

“Oh, we better get off!” Roman said quickly, letting go of Patton’s hand and spinning to turn back towards the entrance.

“Or—” Patton said quickly, and Roman stopped. “Or we don’t have to. You know.” He grabbed onto the wall to keep from falling and looked down to hide his blush. “If you want. We could keep skating.”

Most of the other skaters who weren’t couples had already left the rink when Roman spoke again. “Patton? What is this, exactly?”

Patton glanced up. “It’s… whatever you want it to be?” he said hesitantly.

“I mean… is this a date?”

“If… if you want it to be,” Patton repeated, somehow even more hesitantly.

Roman’s face went bright red, and he was silent for a couple of agonizing seconds. Patton might have been being a little mean, giving him all of the decision responsibility here. But he wasn’t sure he could outright ask without panicking.

Finally, Roman hesitantly reached down and took Patton’s hand again. “Well, if I was asked on a date,” he said slowly. “I would say yes. But I haven’t exactly been asked yet.”

Okay, now  _ that _ was mean. Patton bit his lip hard to steel his nerves as best he could. “Roman Prince, do you want to maybe— go on a date with me and possibly be my boyfriend?” he got out in a rush.

Roman smiled and pulled Patton off the wall, skating them both away from the exit.

“Patton Sanders, it would be my absolute pleasure,” he said.

Patton beamed at him and grabbed tightly onto his hand, partly to keep himself from falling but mostly because that was a thing he could do now. Because now he was dating Roman.

Even a week ago the idea would have made him at best laugh and at worst gag, but now Patton couldn’t stop smiling.

They both skated for another half an hour or so before Patton gave in to his aching feet and declared that he needed to get his skates off.

“So this is why Remus took my car, isn’t it?” Roman asked as they both walked back outside, hands clasped and arms swinging between them.

“Maybe,” Patton said with a slightly mischievous smile. Roman laughed.

Patton drove Roman back home for real this time, where Roman pretended not to notice his parents smiling expectantly on the steps.

“I really had fun,” Roman said, smiling back across the car at him. “Thanks for that.”

“Thank _you,”_ Patton replied, beaming.

Roman beamed for a second too, and then smirked a little, leaned across the car, and kissed Patton on the cheek. Then he hopped quickly out of the car and walked casually up the steps like he knew exactly what he’d just done.

Patton sat there blushing for another minute before he drove back towards his house, though he was unable to stop himself from grinning the entire way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, thanks so much for reading my first multi-chapter Sanders Sides fic! I'm not sure how long it will be before I do another one of these, but I probably will someday, and you can definitely expect plenty of one-shots if the inspiration for this fandom keeps hitting me like it has been. I hope you enjoyed, and once again thanks for reading!


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